The Paris Option

Chapter Fourteen

Two hundred miles south-southwest of Toulon, France, the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle cruised silently through the night, a great beast of the sea, sleek, graceful, and lethal. Only its running lights were on, and its matching pair of PWR Type K15 nuclear-pressure water reactors propelled the carrier at a steady twenty-seven knots, leaving behind an iridescent wake as straight as a razor cut.

The Charles de Gaulle was the newest and largest addition to the navies of Western Europe, and anyone observing, who knew the telltale signs, would realize something significant was happening aboard that Wednesday night. For in the air above, ten Rafale M fighter jets and three E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft were aloft, creating an aerial screen, while the crewmen on duty at the Aster 15 surface-to-air missiles and the eight Giat 20F2 20mm guns were on full alert.

Below decks in a small, secure conference room, five military men, wearing the uniforms of general officers in the armies of the key European Union nations, were listening with varying degrees of concern to their host, who was not only a French general but also Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe for NATO Le Comte Roland la Porte. Hulking and regal, the general stood with his pointer poised before a large map of Europe as he surveyed his fellow generals with his unblinking pale blue eyes.

"This, gentlemen," he said, tapping the chart with his pointer, "shows all the new multinational consortiums that have arisen across Europe to manufacture advanced military weapons and systems."

To his annoyance, he was addressing his guests in English, an insult to French, the historic language of diplomats, the mother tongue of Western civilization. But the truth was, more than half of the EU's military leaders did not speak French well enough to understand him.

So in English, but definitely with a French accent, the massive general continued: "BAE Systems in the UK. EADS in France, Germany, and Spain. Finmeccanica in Italy. Thaes in France and the UK. Astrium in Sweden, which, as you know, is a coalition of both BAE and EADS. European Military Aviation in the UK and Italy. So far, these corporations have further combined with others, as well as among themselves, to produce the Eurofighter aircraft, the NH-90 military transport helicopter, the Tiger combat helicopter, the Stormshadow cruise missile, and the Meteor air-to-air missile. Under discussions that we hope will come to fruition are the Galileo global-positioning system and the Sostar airborne ground-surveillance system."

La Porte slapped the pointer against his palm for emphasis. "I think you will agree that it is an impressive list of cooperation and accomplishment. Add to it the recent political support for pooling all of our research and development funds to create a European program to match Washington's, and I think we can all see the military handwriting on the wall."

There was silence as the generals glanced warily among themselves. Finally, Lieutenant General Sir Arnold Moore, in his dry, clipped, very British voice, asked, "Aside from increasing European trade at the expense of the United States, what's your point, Roland?" General Moore had cobwebbed cheeks, a high forehead, and the same long, narrow aquiline nose that reminded those who knew English history of the first Lancaster king, Henry IV.

The French general turned his gaze upon the British general approvingly. He liked that question and had hoped someone would ask. "Quite simply, Sir Arnold, I believe we are swiftly approaching the time when we can and must have a fully combined European military, so strong that it will no longer need the Americans. Any Americans at all. Completely independent from them. We are ready to resume our rightful leadership role."

As the Englishman registered doubt about what he was hearing, General Valentin Gonzalez of Spain narrowed his eyes, cautious. He was a dapper, swarthy man with a jaunty tilt to his general's cap. "You mean an army beyond the sixty thousand combined troops that we now have under the command of the Rapid Reaction Force, General La Porte? After all, the EU controls it. Don't we already have basically what you're proposing?"

"Non!" La Porte said bluntly. "It's not enough. The Rapid Reaction Force is intended only for deployment on humanitarian, rescue, and peacekeeping missions, and even then it still requires U.S. weapons, support systems, and communications systems so it can operate. Besides, it's too damn small to handle any major problems. What I'm arguing for here is the full integration of the militaries of all our member nations, the entire two million soldiers, so that we have all the capabilities of a self-sufficient army, navy, and air force."

"But to what purpose, Roland?" Sir Arnold wanted to know. He crossed his arms and frowned. "Why? Aren't we all NATO allies anyway, working for a peaceful world? Competing in many ways, yes, but with our military enemies in common?"

"Our interests are not always the same as those of the United States." La Porte stepped closer to the group, his enormous girth momentarily intimidating. "In fact, in my opinion, they are far from the same now, as I have been trying to convince the EU for some years. Europe was, and is, too great to be a mere satellite of the United States."

Sir Arnold repressed a chuckle. "Remind your own country of that, Roland. After all, this grand aircraft carrier, this futuristic French warship that's carrying us, has made-in-the-USA steam catapults and arresting cables, since nothing else is available. And the Hawkeye surveillance and early-warning planes that you've got up there circling are also made in the United States. Rather critical points, wouldn't you say?"

Italian General Ruggiero Inzaghi had been listening carefully. He had large dark eyes, as hard as flint, and a wide mouth that was habitually set in a straight, no-nonsense line. He had been studying the big Frenchman, but now he turned to the Englishman. "I think General La Porte has a point. The Americans often brush off our immediate and long-range needs, especially when they don't easily coincide with what they think they want."

The Spaniard, General Valentin Gonzalez, wagged a finger at the Italian. "Your own problem in Albania some years ago wouldn't be on your mind, would it, Ruggie? As I recall, it wasn't just the United States that had no interest in such a minor matter. Neither did the rest of Europe."

General Inzaghi retorted, "With a fully integrated European army, we'd back each other with all our concerns."

"As do each of the American states, which once were so contentious that they fought a long, savage civil war among themselves," La Porte pointed out. "They still disagree, but they're all one on the larger issues. Consider, gentlemen, that we Europeans have an economy one-third larger than that of the United States, and most of our citizens enjoy levels of medical, educational, and social benefits that are superior, too. There are more of us, and we're better off. Yet we still can't engage in a crucial military operation alone. That was made painfully clear by our inability to deal with the crises in the Balkans. Once more, we had to go to Washington with our hats in our hands. It's too humiliating. Are we to remain stepchildren forever to a nation that owes its very existence to us?"

The only general in the conference room who still had taken no part in the discussion, preferring, it seemed, to watch and listen, was Bundeswehr General Otto Bittrich. As usual, the expression on his rawboned face was thoughtful. His blond hair was nearly white now, but his ruddy complexion seemed decades younger than his fifty-two years. He cleared his throat, his Prussian expression severe.

"The Kosovo campaign occurred in an area that's cost Europe millions of dead over the centuries," he said with a sweep of his gaze to make certain that he had their undivided attention, "a tumultuous region, dangerous to all our interests. The Balkans are, after all, our powder keg. Everyone knows this. Yet to do what was necessary to control the fighting in Kosovo and stabilize Europe again, it was Washington that had to provide eighty-five percent of the equipment and systems." The German general's voice rose with indignation. "Yes, our member nations have some two million soldiers, fully operational air forces, and excellent navies, all well equipped to fight but what good are they? They stay home and inspect the space between their toes. Useless! We could go back into the past and fight World War Two again, Ja. We could even destroy cities with dumb bombs now. But without the Americans, as General La Porte has correctly said, we can't transport troops and materiel to a modern war, much less fight it. We have no operational planning capability. No command structures. Technically, electronically, logistically, and strategically, we're mastodons. I am, in truth, embarrassed by this. Aren't you, too?"

But the Britisher, Sir Arnold, held his ground, asking lightly, "Could we all really get along in a unified European army? Could we actually plan operations together, allow multinational communications? Face it, my friends, it isn't only the Americans who have interests different from ours. We, too, disagree, especially politically. And that's where the approval of such an independent military force would have to come from."

General Inzaghi sat up straighter, annoyed. "About getting along, Sir Arnold," he retorted, "our politicians may have difficulty, but I assure you that our soldiers don't. The Rapid Reaction Force is already stationed outside Mostar in Bosniathe Salamander Division, seven thousand men strong, in Italian, French, German, and Spanish battle groups. General La Porte's own countryman General Robert Meilleis in charge."

"And the Eurocorp," the Spaniard Gonzalez pointed out. "Don't forget them. Fifty thousand Spanish, German, Belgian, and French troops."

"At the moment, under Bundeswehr command," General Bittrich added with satisfaction.

"Yes," Inzaghi said, nodding. "The multinational Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese troops under a single command to protect our Mediterranean coastline."

The missing nation in all these multi-European military organizations became glaringly clear as each was enumerated. There was a heavy silence, in which no one mentioned that when Britain took part in a joint operation, it was invariably only with the Americans, where they were the second-largest contingent and therefore at least second in command.

Sir Arnold only smiled. A political as well as a military man, he continued to speak lightly: "And are those combined units how all of you envision the structure of this Pan-European army? Bits and pieces stuck together with schoolboy's paste? I'd hardly call them unified."

La Porte hesitated, then said carefully, "The exact structure of any European combined military would have to be worked out, of course. I envision more than one possibility, Arnold. Naturally, we'd want Britain's full input and"

Otto Bittrich broke in. "For myself, I see a centrally organized and highly integrated force where the influence of individual states is blurred if not nonexistent. In short, a truly independent European army under a rotating joint command, answerable to no individual nation, but to the EU Parliament alone. That way, political control is assured, where all nations have members, and majority rules. Anything less would be a eunuch."

But General Gonzalez looked troubled. He complained in a Spanish accent, "You're talking of more than an army, General Bittrich. You're imagining a United Europe, which to some of us is very, very different from a European Union."

"A United Europe will almost certainly result from a true European military, I should say," the British general remarked pointedly.

Bittrich and La Porte both brushed that aside, and Bittrich said angrily, "That's not at all what I said, General Moore. I speak militarily, not politically. As a trading bloc and a geographical entity, Europe has common interests that are of little importance to the United States. In fact, many times our interests are opposed to the United States. The EU shares everything from a currency to regulations on hunting migratory birds. Surely it's time to spread that umbrella. We should not depend on the bloody American military any longer!"

"For myself," La Porte put in with a gruff laugh, "and I believe you will all admit that no one is more protective of his national identity and importance than is a Frenchman, especially one like myself I believe a true United Europe must come. Perhaps a thousand years from now, but it's inevitable. Still, I doubt a united military will force it to happen any sooner."

"Well," the Briton snapped, all lightness abruptly gone, "my own nation's views on the matter are clear. No totally integrated European army. No European cap badges. No European flag. None. Any British contribution to the Rapid Reaction Force, or a self-contained army, must remain firmly under British control, deployed at the bidding of the British prime minister." Sir Arnold took an angry breath and asked, "And exactly where would the money come from for the transport planes such a 'no U.S. involvement' military would need? Also for the cargo ships and aircraft, the communications systems, the laser-guided munitions, the electronic jamming units, the military planning system, the fully modernized command structure? Certainly not from Britain!"

La Porte said confidently, "The money will be there, Sir Arnold, when the need becomes so clear that even the politicians can evade the future no longer. When they understand that the fate of Europe is at stake."

Sir Arnold was watching the French general intently. "Do you perhaps envision a time when we'd want to go to war with the United States?"

A hush spread around the room, while La Porte paced, his face in a sudden scowl, his ponderous body impressive for its agility. "We already are at war with the Americans, in every aspect of life and business except militarily. But militarily, we cannot be. We are too weak, too dependent on all their systems, hardware, and even the most modern weapons. We have soldiers and arms that we can't properly equip, move, or control, without Washington." He stopped pacing to face them, allowing his stern, unblinking eyes to examine each face. "For example, what would happen if there was some extreme crisis with Russia or China, and the American systems upon which we depend were all rendered useless or worse? What if Washington lost control of its own command and control systems? Where would we be then? If, for any reason, the Americans became defenseless, if only for a short time, then we would, too. In fact, we'd be even more defenseless."

Sir Arnold's eyes suddenly narrowed in his leathery face. "Do you know something the rest of us don't, Roland?"

Roland la Porte met his gaze. "I know nothing more than you, Sir Arnold, and I'm insulted you'd even raise the question. If anyone would know more, it'd be you. We French do not have a 'special relationship' with the Americans, unlike you English. But yesterday's invasion of the American energy networks could have easily been far worse, which certainly underlines my point."

General Moore stared at La Porte a full thirty seconds more. Then he seemed to think of something else. He relaxed, smiled, and stood up. "I believe our business here is over. As for the fate and future of Europe, we in Britain consider it tied permanently to that of the United States, whether we like it or not."

"Ah, yes." La Porte smiled a humorless smile. "The concept of your George Orwell, I believe."

General Moore, the Englishman, flushed a livid red, locked eyes again with La Porte, then turned on his heel and marched out of the conference room.

"What was that all about?" General Inzaghi wanted to know, his black marble eyes suspicious.

Otto Bittrich said grimly, "The English novel 1984. In it, England was Air Strip One for a Pan-American and British Commonwealth entity called Oceania, united happily forever. At the same time, Europe and Russia were joined together and formed Eurasia. What was left over was called Eastasia — China, India, Central Asia, and all the Oriental countries. Personally, I'd say Britain already is America's Air Strip One, and we must proceed without them."

"Exactly how do we proceed?" Gonzalez asked.

La Porte had the answer: "We must each convince our nations and EU delegates that a future European military is the only way to protect Europe's identity. And our greatness. In fact, that is our destiny."

"You are speaking about the principle of such an army, General La Porte, yes?" General Gonzalez said.

"Of course, Valentin." General La Porte's eyes were dreamy. "I'm an idealist, it's true. But it's a principle we must start to work toward now. If the Americans can't protect their own utility systems, how can they continue to protect ours? We must grow up, be on our own."

Captain Darius Bonnard stood out of the night wind as the last of the five generals' helicopters General Inzaghi's rose up against the night sky. The salty Mediterranean air was crisp, invigorating, and he breathed deeply as he listened to the loud chop of the blades.

The big bird flew north, in the direction of the Italian coast. Once it was safely out of range, the Charles de Gaulle altered course, sliding quietly through the sea in a long arc as it headed back to the French coast and Toulon. Still, the Frenchman continued to watch the Italian helicopter as its lights faded, the roar of its rotors dimmed.

But he was not so much watching as mulling over the meeting of the generals, which had been instructive. He had sat at the back of the room, quiet and unobtrusive, where he had missed nothing. General La Porte's compelling arguments for a European military had pleased him, as had discovering that most of the other generals were already thinking along the same lines. But the general's implication that he knew more about the recent breakdowns in American electronic systems than was common knowledge had worried him.

Bonnard sensed trouble on the horizon. He pulled meditatively on his lower lip as he thought about the British general, Sir Arnold Moore. The English bulldog was stubborn, obviously an American pawn, and altogether too paranoid. What La Porte had said had alarmed his English sensibilities, and he would soon be reporting possible plots to his prime minister, the War Office, and MI6. Measures would have to be taken, and quickly.

Again the captain looked out to sea, where the retreating helicopters formed four tiny dots. Sir Arnold Moore would be handled. He smiled. There were only three more days. Just three days to control all aspects. Not long at all, but in other ways, perhaps, an eternity.

Chapter Fifteen

As Smith watched through the barred window, Emile Chambord tenderly pressed his wrinkled cheek down onto the top of his daughter's head, closed his eyes, and murmured something, a prayer perhaps. Thérèse clung to him as if he had come back from the dead, and in a way he had. He kissed her hair and turned furious eyes onto the short, stout man who had entered the room first.

Smith could hear Chambord clearly through the window glass as he snarled, "You damned monster!"

"I'm truly hurt. Dr. Chambord," the other man said, his round face pleasant. "I thought you'd welcome your daughter's company, since you'll be with us for some time. You seemed so lonely that I feared your emotions were causing you to take your mind off your work. That'd be unfortunate for all of us."

"Get out of here, Mauritania! Have the decency at least to leave me alone with my daughter!"

So that was what Mauritania meant. It was the name of this soft-looking man, who smiled but did not mean it, who was fueled by some kind of iridescent vision.

Mauritania shrugged. "As you wish. I'm sure the lady is hungry. She's forgotten to eat tonight again." He glanced at the untouched meal on the wooden tray. "We'll have a quick dinner soon, now that our business here is finished, and you can both join us." He bowed in polite farewell and left, closing the door behind him. Smith heard it lock.

Emile Chambord threw one more angry look over his shoulder and then stepped back from Thérèse, his hands firmly on her shoulders. "Let me look at you, daughter. Are you all right? They didn't hurt you? If they did, I'll"'

He stopped as a burst of gunshots sounded. A violent fusillade by small arms somewhere outdoors, near the front of the house. Inside, running feet hammered, and doors crashed open. In the barred room, Dr. Chambord and Thérèse stared first at the door and then at each other. Thérèse's face was frightened, while Dr. Chambord appeared more concerned than scared. He frowned at the door. A tough old man.

Smith had no idea what was happening, but this was a distraction he could not lose. Now that he had found them both alive, he must get them out. They had been through enough, and without Emile Chambord, the DNA machine might be useless to the terrorists. He did not know whether Chambord had been forced to operate his molecular computer for them, or perhaps they had another expert and had kidnapped Chambord to keep him from duplicating his triumph.

Whatever the truth, Smith needed to get the Chambords out of their hands. As he pulled on the window's iron bars to see whether any were loose, Thérèse caught sight of him.

"Jon! What are you doing here?" She ran to the window and tried to raise the glass. As she struggled, she turned back to her father. "It's Dr. Jon Smith, an American. He's a friend of your new collaborator, Dr. Zellerbach." She studied the window, and her eyes grew large and appalled. "The wood part of it's nailed shut, Jon. I can't open it."

Bursts of gunfire continued to crackle in the distance as Smith gave up on the bars. They were set firmly in an iron frame. "I'll explain everything later. Thérèse. Where's the DNA computer?"

"I don't know!"

Chambord growled, "It's not here. What are you"

There was no more time for talk. "Stand back!" He held up his Sig Sauer. "I've got to shoot the frame loose."

Thérèse stared at the weapon. She looked from it to Jon's face and then back at the gun. She nodded and ran back out of the way.

But before Jon could fire, the door to the room flung open, and the short, heavy man known as Mauritania stood there. "What's all this shouting?" His gaze froze at the window. On Smith. They looked into each other's eyes. Mauritania drew a pistol, fell flat onto his belly, fired, and bellowed, "Abu Auda! I need you!"

Smith peeled away just in time. The bullet smashed through the glass. He burned to return fire, but if he shot blindly into the room, he might hit one of the Chambords. Clenching his jaw, he waited until another bullet blasted through the window, and then he quickly raised up, Sig Sauer first, one eye peering into the room, ready to shoot.

But it was empty, and the door was wide open, showing an equally empty hall. Emile and Thérèse Chambord were gone. As quickly as he had found them, they had disappeared.

Smith ran toward the third window. Perhaps they had been moved to this room. But just as he reached the window and discovered an empty office inside, the tall Fulani in the long white robes, who had patrolled earlier, appeared from around the back of the farmhouse, gun up and ready. Right behind him came three more armed men, and all had that alert look of soldiers at war.

Smith went into an instant shoulder roll as bullets thudded into the ground, following him. He returned fire through the dark night, thankful for the thickening spring cloud layer that blocked the moon. His bullet hit one of the men in the midsection. The man doubled over and fell, and in those few seconds Smith's other pursuers shifted their attention to their wounded comrade. That was when Smith leaped up and sprinted.

More bullets chased him, whining past and hitting the ground, tufts of weeds shattering up into the air. He ran a zigzag pattern, faster than he had ever run in his life. Marksmanship was more than being able to shoot straight and hit the target. It was psychology, reflexes, and being experienced enough to predict what the target was going to do next. An erratic pattern was good defense. As Smith's weary body complained, he saw he was approaching the windbreak.

With a final burst of speed, he threw himself into the growth of trees. The musky odors of decaying leaves and wet soil filled his head. Again he shoulder-rolled, came up in a tight ball on his haunches, whirled around, and pointed his Sig Sauer back at his assailants. He squeezed off a series of rounds, a hailstorm of bullets, and he did not care where they landed. His barrage was enough that the tall leader and the others fell to the ground for cover, and maybe he had hit two of them. But then, they had run straight at him, perfect marks.

Smith tore away through the woods, heading around toward the front of the house, where the initial gunfire had started. He listened. The shots were sometimes sporadic, sometimes intense. Behind him in the trees, there was no sign of pursuit.

Then he saw it: In the front of the farmyard, pandemonium had broken out. Figures lay stretched out on the ground, weapons up and pointed at the windbreak. At least twenty of them. As Smith watched, rapid muzzle flashes burst from the other side of a thick oak, while out in the yard, someone screamed in agony.

In his white burnoose, the lead extremist came running around through the open area, shouting orders. He crouched next to the corral and bawled an instruction in violent Arabic back at the house. Moments later all the house's lights went out, its windows suddenly inky black pits, and a spotlight mounted at the left corner just beneath the roof blazed to life, illuminating the yard and rotating mechanically from some remote control until it focused on the windbreak, where it homed in on the oak tree.

Now that his men were no longer back-lighted, the white-robed leader waved them forward.

In response, a furious burst of automatic fire erupted from the woods. Two attackers fell, grunting, cursing, one clutching an arm and the other a shoulder. The rest plummeted to the earth again and raised up on their elbows to return fire. Only the bedouin leader remained a target, kneeling in plain sight as he coolly shot his old British assault rifle and cursed the others in vivid Arabic. With the gunman's total attention directed at the oak bathed in merciless light, Smith dropped lower and scrambled closer to see who was firing from behind it.

He parted a cluster of Spanish broom and peered through at a single figure, who knelt behind the tree, reloading a Heckler Koch MP5K compact submachine gun with a fresh banana clip. The spotlight illuminated the front and sides of the tree, leaving the back in shadow. Still, he could see enough to be shocked a third time that night: It was the unattractive, dark-haired woman he had spotted yesterday outside the Pasteur Institute, the same woman who later walked right past where he sat in the caf but had shown no interest in him.

She was no longer wearing the dowdy, ill-fitting clothes and plain shoes of Paris. Instead, she was dressed in a slim, black jumpsuit, a black watch cap rolled up above her ears, and snug black boots. A change that revealed a far from frumpish shape, and also suited the requirements of her current activity. As Smith watched, she moved as calmly and smoothly as if she were on a firing range, releasing a series of careful bursts of three as she swept the MP5K across the semicircle in front of her. There was a precision, but at the same time a controlled carelessness to her work, as if her instincts were as well honed as her craft, which was impressive. As she released her last burst, somewhere to the left, there was another shriek of pain, and she jumped up and ran back, retreating deeper into the woods.

Smith followed, fast and low to the ground, attracted by the fact that not only were she and he fighting on the same side, but he suddenly realized there was something about her that was familiar, something that had little to do with the events of today or yesterday Her coolness and skill, the shape of her body, the intuitive risk-taking while at the same time the almost machinelike exactness. The right move at the right time.

As he watched, she dropped again, this time behind bushes. Simultaneously, bursts of gunfire and a round of swearing showed that the terrorists had arrived at the oak and found she had flown.

Smith remained motionless, hidden behind a poplar tree, as the sense of familiarity grew. Her face was wrong, her hair was wrong, and yet? Her body in the slim coveralls, the way she held her head, the sure, powerful hands. And then there were her movements. He had seen it all before. It had to be her. What she was doing? Being here. CIA was in on this, that was certain. Randi Russell.

He smiled briefly, feeling the same surge of attraction he experienced every time he saw her under any circumstance. That was because of her close resemblance to her sister, Sophia. At least he always accounted for it that way, knowing he was not being completely honest with himself.

She glanced away over her shoulder, clearly planning her next move, a certain angry desperation on her face. He would have to help her, despite the fact that if they survived, she would interfere with his investigation. In fact, she already had. But her chances of getting away alone were minimal.

The terrorists had stopped their frontal assault and were moving around her in two arms, while holding her pinned down from in front. Smith could hear the men padding through the murky woods on both flanks. She glanced nervously right and left, listening, too, her desperation deepening. It was like the jaws of a trap closing in on her, and if she was caught alone, she would be unable to recover.

The first man slipped into view. It was time to remind the Fulani and his men that they were dealing with more than just one opponent.

Smith unscrewed his Sig Sauer's silencer and opened fire. As the sound of his gunshot cracked like a thunderbolt in the quiet, woodsy air, the terrorist spun back, clutching his wounded firing arm. Another man appeared suddenly to the first one's right, still not understanding the danger. Quickly, Smith shot again. As the new man screamed and fell, there was a babble of shouts, scurrying feet scrambling for cover, and the angry voice of the leader. Almost simultaneously, Russell squeezed off three bullets aimed at assailants on her other side, where Smith could not see.

More shouts followed, and then more noise of feet in retreat. Smith turned to run when a flash of white attracted his attention, from the direction of the farmhouse. He looked more closely and saw the dark Fulani had arisen to his full, erect height and was standing defiant in his white robes at the edge of the windbreak. His voice was furious as he raged at his people to hold their ground.

Then Smith heard another sound and turned again: Randi Russell was speeding toward him. "Never thought I'd be glad to see you." Her whisper was filled with both relief and annoyance. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

"Seems like every time we meet, you're on the run."

She glowered at him, and they bent low and bolted in the direction of the main road.

He was on her heels. "What did you do to your face?"

She did not answer as they tore through the timber. Their pursuers were momentarily disorganized, and that was going to be their only break. They had to make time while they could. They pounded onward, ducking under tree branches, dodging patches of scrub, terrifying the wildlife with their ferocious pace.

At last they dove over a stone wall, scrambled back up to their feet, and ran onward, gasping for breath, sweating, until, finally, they found the main blacktop road. They lurked inside the woods and studied the road both ways, weapons ready.

"See anything?" she asked.

"Not two-legged and armed."

"Smart-ass." In the shadowy trees, she looked at him as a crooked smile of greeting curled up the corners of his mouth. He had a great face, one she had always liked. His high, flat cheekbones and chiseled chin were very male. She pushed that from her mind as she continued to study the road, the woods, the shadows.

Jon said, "We'd better move on back toward Toledo, try to keep ahead of them. And I really do want to know about your face. Please don't tell me it's plastic surgery, I'd be devastated." They trotted off again, alongside each other now on the dark road.

"Hold out your hand."

"I have a feeling I shouldn't." He stuck out his free hand anyway.

She reached inside her upper lip, left side, right side, and removed inserts. She extended her hand, intending to drop them onto his palm.

He yanked his hand away. "Thanks, but no thanks."

She grinned, unzipped a pocket on her web belt, and slipped them inside. "The wig stays on. It's bad enough you're running around in that neon Hawaiian shirt. At least it's a dark blue. My blond hair would be like a beacon."

She really was good; she knew how to use very little cosmetic change to great effect. With the inserts, her features had been lumpy and wide, making her eyes seem too close together, and her chin too small. But now her face was the one he remembered. Her wide-set eyes, straight nose, and high forehead radiated a kind of sexy intelligence that he found intriguing, even when she was her usual prickly self.

He was thinking about all that as he watched for the terrorists. He half-expected a truckload of them to roar down the road, a machine gun attached on top, when he heard engines thunder to life behind them from the direction of the farmhouse.

"Hear that?" he asked.

"I'm not deaf."

The noise changed, and the chop-chop of rotors was added to the booming engines. Soon, from behind them in the direction of the farmhouse, three helicopters rose into the night like the shadows of giant birds, one after the other, their red and green navigational lights blinking as they circled and headed south. Dark, bruised-looking clouds scudded across the sky. The moon peeked out and disappeared, and so did the helicopters.

"We've just been abandoned," she complained. "Damnation!"

"Shouldn't that be 'amen'? That was a damn close call for you."

She bristled. "Maybe, but I've been tailing M. Mauritania for two weeks, and now I've lost him, and I damn well don't know who the rest of them were, much less where they've gone."

"They're an Islamic terrorist group called the Crescent Shield. They're the ones who bombed the Pasteur Institute, or had it done by a front group to cover their tracks."

"What front group?"

"The Black Flame."

"Never heard of them."

"Not surprising. They've been out of action for at least ten years. This operation was their attempt to raise money so they could get back to their game. Tell your people the next time you check in, and they can warn the Spanish authorities. The Black Flame also kidnapped Chambord and his daughter. But it's the Crescent Shield who's holding them prisoner, and they have Chambord's DNA computer, too."

Randi stopped running as if she had hit a wall. "Chambord's alive?"

"He was in that farmhouse, so was his daughter."

"The computer?"

"Not there."

They resumed moving, this time walking in silence, busy with their own thoughts.

Jon said, "You're part of the search for the DNA computer?"

"Of course, but peripherally," Randi told him. "We've got people out investigating all known terrorist leaders. I was already surveilling Mauritania, because he'd reemerged from whatever hole he'd been hiding in the last three years. I tailed him from Algiers to Paris. Then the Pasteur was bombed, it looked as if a DNA computer had been stolen, and all of us were put on high alert. But I never saw him make contact with any other known terrorist except that big Fulani, Abu Auda. They're friends from the old days of Al Qaeda."

"Just who or what is this Mauritania that he was on the CIA's to-be-watched list?"

"You'll hear him called Monsieur Mauritania," Randi corrected. "It's a sign of respect, and he insists on it. We think his real name's Khalid al-Shanquiti, although sometimes he goes by Mahfouz Oud al-Walidi. He was a top lieutenant of Bin Laden but left before Bin Laden moved his people to Afghanistan. Mauritania keeps a damn low profile, almost never shows up on intelligence radar, and tends to operate more in Algeria than anywhere else, when we do spot him. What do you know about this Crescent Shield group?"

"Only what I saw in that farmhouse. They seem to be experienced, well trained, and efficient at least their leaders are. From the number of languages I heard, I'd say they're from just about every country that has Islamic fundamentalists. Pan-Islamic, and damn well organized."

"They would be, with Mauritania in charge. Organized and smart." She turned her X-ray eyes on Smith. "Now let's talk about you. Clearly you're part of the hunt for the molecular computer, too, or you wouldn't have appeared at that farmhouse in the nick of time to save my skin, and know what you know. When I spotted you in Paris, the story Langley told me was you'd flown to Paris to hold poor Marty's hand. Now"

"Why was the CIA having me watched?"

She snorted. "You know the services spy on each other. You could be an agent working for a foreign power, right? Supposedly you don't work for CIA, FBI, NSA, or even army intelligence, no matter what anyone says, and the 'I'm only here for poor Marty' story is obviously bull. You had me fooled in Paris all right, but not here, so who the hell do you work for?"

Smith feigned indignation. "Marty was almost killed by that bomb, Randi." Inwardly he cursed Fred Klein and this secret life to which he had agreed. Covert-One was so clandestine black code that even Randi, despite all her CIA credentials, could not learn about it. "You know how it is with me," he continued with a self-deprecating shrug. "I can't not find out who nearly killed Marty. And we both know that won't satisfy me. I'll want to stop them, too. But then again, what else would a real friend do?"

They stopped at the base of a long, low hill and gazed up. It was such a gentle incline that Smith had not even noticed it while he was following Elizondo. But now, for the return trip, the upward slope seemed long and hard. They looked at it as if they could make it go away.

"Nuts," she told him. "Last time I heard, Marty was in a coma. If he needs you anywhere, it's in the hospital, bugging the doctors. So give me a break. Once it was personal, like with the Hades virus, because of Sophia. But now? So who do you really work for? What don't I know that I should?"

They had stood there long enough, he decided. "Come on. Let's go back. We've got to check the farmhouse. If it's empty, maybe they've left something to tell us where they've gone. If there's still someone there, we'd better question them and find out what they know." He turned around, retracing their steps, and she sighed and caught up. "It's all about Marty," he told her. "Really. You're too suspicious. All that CIA training, I suppose. My grandmother used to warn me to not look for filth in a clean handkerchief. Didn't your grandmother ever tell you something useful like that?"

She opened her mouth to retort. Instead, she said, "Shhh. Listen." She cocked her head.

He heard it, too the low purr of a powerful car engine. But no headlights. They darted off the road and into a grove of olive trees. The sound was coming toward them, down the hill, heading toward the farmhouse. Abruptly, the engine stopped, and all he could hear was something strange, something he could not quite identify.

"What the devil is that?" Randi whispered.

Then he knew. "Rolling car wheels,", he whispered back. "See it? It's that black, moving lump on the road. You can almost make it out."

She understood. "A black car, no headlights, no engine. Coasting down the hill. Crescent Shield?"

"Could be."

They made quick plans, and Jon darted across the road to an olive tree that stood alone, probably cut off from the little grove when the road was put in.

The vehicle emerged from the dark like a mechanical apparition. It was a large, old-fashioned touring car of the type favored by Nazi officers during World War II. The top was open, and it looked as if it could have glided straight out of an old newsreel. There was only one person inside. Jon held up his Sig Sauer to signal Randi. She nodded back: The Crescent Shield would not have sent one man to attack them.

As the elegant touring car continued coasting, it had gained speed and now was just a hundred feet away. Randi pointed to herself and then at Jon and nodded toward the car. Jon got the message: She was tired of walking. He grinned and nodded back: So was he.

As the car passed, still dark and silent, they jumped onto the old running boards on either side. With his free hand, Jon grabbed the top of the door, and with the other he pointed his Sig Sauer at the driver's hat. Amazingly, the driver did not look up. In fact, he did not react at all. And then Jon saw that the man wore a black suit and clerical collar. He was an Episcopal ministerAnglican over here.

Randi grimaced across the car at him. She had noticed, too. She rolled her eyes, her message clear: It was not good international relations to steal a car from a parson.

"Feeling a shade guilty, are we?" the British voice boomed, still not looking up. "I expect you would've managed eventually to get back to Toledo by yourselves, but it would've taken too bloody long, and, as you Americans say, time it is a wasting."

There was no mistaking that voice. "Peter!" Jon grumbled. "Are there any agencies not chasing the DNA computer?" He and Randi climbed into the backseat of the open car.

"Not bloody likely, my lad. Our world has the wind up. Don't blame them, actually. Nasty scenario."

Randi demanded, "Where the hell did you come from?"

"Same place you did, Randi girl. Watched your little dust up from a hill above the farmhouse."

"You mean you were there? You saw it all," Randi exploded, "and you didn't help?"

Peter Howell smiled. "You handled the situation nicely without me. Gave me a chance to observe our nameless friends and saved you the trouble of going back, which, of course, you were already on your way to do."

Jon and Randi looked at each other. "Okay," Jon said, "what did happen after we got away?"

"They bunked lock, stock, and barrel in their helicopters."

"You went down to search?" Randi asked.

"Naturally," Peter said. "Food still warm in the kitchen, waiting to be served. But the house was empty of people, dead or alive, and no clues to who'd been there or where they'd gone. No maps in the house, no papers, absolutely nothing, except great heaps of burned paper in the fireplace. And, of course, there was no sign of the beastly machine itself."

"They have it all right," Jon assured him, "but it was never there, or at least that's what Chambord believed." As Peter turned the car around in a wide place on the road, Jon and Randi filled him in on what they had learned about the Crescent Shield, Mauritania, the Chambords, and the DNA computer.

Chapter Sixteen

Elizondo Ibarguengoitia licked his lips and dropped his gaze. His wiry body was hunched, the red beret askew, his demeanor harried. "We thought you were leaving Toledo, M. Mauritania. You say you have another job for us? The money is good?"

"The others left, Elizondo, I'll join them soon. There was too much I still had to do here. Yes, the rewards for this new job are impressive, I assure you. Are you and your people interested?"

"Of course!"

They were inside the vast, echoing Cathedral, in the famed chapel of the White Madonna with its white statues, columns, and rococo stone and plaster decorations. Abu Auda was leaning against the wall next to the Christian icon Mary and the infant Jesus, where his white burnoose seemed to mimic the statue itself.

As Mauritania talked to the three Basques Elizondo, Zumaia, and Iturbi he smiled, leaned on a cane, and studied Elizondo's face.

Elizondo nodded eagerly. "What's the job?"

"All in good time, Elizondo," Mauritania said. "All in good time. First, please describe for me how you killed the American Colonel Smith. You're certain his body's in the river? You're positive he's dead?"

Elizondo looked regretful. "When I shot him, he fell into the river. Iturbi tried to pull his body out, but the current captured him, and he was gone. We would've preferred to bury him, of course, where he wouldn't be found. With luck, his corpse will float all the way to Lisbon. No one there will know who he is."

Mauritania nodded solemnly, as if considering whether there would be problems when the corpse was eventually recovered. "All of this is strange, Elizondo. You see, Abu Auda there" he nodded at the silent terrorist" assures me that one of the two people who attacked us at the farmhouse after you left was the same Colonel Smith. That makes it unlikely you killed him."

Elizondo's complexion turned as bloodless as the statue. "He's wrong. He was shot. We shot"

"He's quite certain," Mauritania interrupted, sounding genuinely puzzled. "Abu Auda came to know Colonel Smith in Paris. In fact, one of Abu's men was there when you kidnapped the woman. So, you see"

Now Elizondo understood. He pulled his knife from his belt and lunged at Mauritania. At the same time, Zumaia yanked out his pistol, and Iturbi spun away to escape.

But Mauritania whipped his cane up with the speed of a striking snake, and a narrow blade shot out from the tip. It glinted in the dim light of the chapel and then disappeared as Elizondo impaled himself on its point with his frantic charge. Mauritania, his face red with anger, twisted the blade and ripped it up in an arc through the vital organs. Elizondo collapsed, holding his own entrails, staring in surprise at Mauritania. He pitched forward, dead.

At the same time, Zumaia had managed to half-turn, his pistol firing a single unaimed shot before Abu Auda's scimitar slashed through his throat. Blood spurted, and he sprawled forward.

Iturbi tried to run, but Abu Auda smoothly reversed his powerful wrist and thrust the blade backhanded so deep into the fleeing Basque's back that the point exited through his chest. With both hands, the giant Fulani lifted the sword a few inches and, with it, the dying Basque. Abu Auda's green-brown eyes flashed with anger as he watched Iturbi wriggle like a rabbit on a spit. When the man slumped dead on the blade, Abu Auda pulled the scimitar out.

Mauritania wiped his narrow sword on a white altar cloth and touched the button on the cane that retracted the blade. Abu Auda washed his sword in the font of holy water and dried it on his burnoose. His desert robes were now not only dirty but bloody.

Abu Auda sighed. "It's been a long time since I've washed in the blood of my enemies, Khalid. It feels good."

Mauritania nodded, understanding. "We mustn't linger. There's still much to do before we strike."

The two men stepped over the dead Basques and slipped through the Cathedral and out into the night.

An hour later, Jon, Randi, and Peter were on the highway, driving away from Toledo. First they had stopped in the city, where Jon had retrieved his laptop and bag from the trunk of his rented Renault. The car was untouched, containing only the cut ropes. With luck, Bixente had escaped back to his life as a shepherd. As Jon loaded his belongings into the touring car, Peter and Randi put the top on it, and they sped away, Peter driving. Now as the spires and towers of the fabled city of El Greco faded in the distance, Peter slowed to just beneath the national speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour. They did not need to attract police attention.

Randi settled into the rear of the classic touring car, where the old seat still gave off a scent of expensive leather. She listened as Jon and Peter discussed in the front seat which route to take to Madrid, where they would report in and regroup.

"Just don't go back the same way Jon drove, in case the Basques were tailing him." She repressed her irritation as Peter took her advice. Why was she so testy around Jon? At first she had blamed him for her fiance Mike's death in Somalia, and later for Sophia's tragic murder, but she had since grown to respect him. She wanted to put the past behind her, but it nagged like an unfulfilled promise. The odd part was she felt he would like to forget about it, too. They were frozen by too much history between them.

"God knows what we'll find next," Peter said. "Let's hope it's the molecular computer." The "retired" SAS trooper and MI6 spy was muscular and lean, perhaps just a shade too lean under his priest's costume. His hands were curved brown claws on the steering wheel, and his face was narrow, the color and texture of leather dried out by years of wind and sun. It was so deeply lined that his eyes seemed embedded in canyons. But even in the night, those eyes remained sharp and guarded. Then they suddenly twinkled, amused. "Oh, and Jon, my friend, you seriously owe me for this little scratch. But I suppose I owe you for a bump on your noggin, too."

Peter reached up and lifted off his churchly black hat to reveal a bandage wrapped around the top of his head.

Jon stared at the bandage and shook his head as Peter adjusted the hat back onto his head. "I'll be damned. So you were the Algerian orderly at the Pompidou who caused all the trouble." He remembered a flitting sense of familiarity as the orderly had run backward down the hospital corridor, waving a mini-submachine gun in warning to keep everyone at bay. It was Peter's head that had left the trace of blood on the banister. "So you were there to protect Marty, not to kill him. That's why when you finally shot, it was high."

"All true." Peter nodded. "Happened to be in the hospital keeping an eye on our friend when I heard he had a 'family' visitor. Since Marty has no close family left, if you don't count the dog we picked up on the Hades thing, I got the wind up and flew up there didi mau with my little Sterling. Saw you spot me and had to bunk or blow my whole pantomime."

From the back, Randi said, "Which means SAS or MI6 is watching Marty."

"Ah, a trifle old for the Special Air boys, but MI6 does still find me useful from time to time. Whitehall is salivating over this DNA gadget."

"They called on you?"

"I know a bit about the DNA potential, and I've worked fairly often with the French, which is not MI6's best feature. One of the perks of being retired, out of the game, so to speak, is that I get to go my own way a bit. If they think they need me, they have to come to me. Then whenever I don't want to play, I gather my toys and toddle back to my lair in the Sierras with Stan. Drives them silly, of course."

Randi repressed a smile. Peter often referred to his age disparagingly, maybe to distract people from his actual abilities, which would shame many a thirty-something.

Jon frowned. "But why not identify yourself to me? Why let me chase you? Hell, you made me jump over a gurney!"

Peter grinned. "That was a pretty sight. Worth anything just to witness that." He paused. His voice grew serious as he admitted, "Never sure, are we? Couldn't know why you were there, eh? Downing Street and the Oval Office don't always back the same pony. Better to find out first who's doing what."

Jon continued to frown. "But after that, I saw you go into General Henze's pension. The one where he wasn't supposed to be. Sounds as if you were interested in the same pony there."

"You spotted me? Don't like that very much. Others could have as well."

"I didn't have a clue it was you. Either time, if that helps."

Considerable satisfaction was in Peter's voice as he decided, "That was the idea, wasn't it?"

"Especially when you're visiting an American general," Jon said, studying his friend.

"He's NATO, too, you see. Have to make nice with the EU."

"And tell the NATO general what?"

"Classified, my boy. Strict orders."

With that Peter was clearly going to say no more, friends or no friends.

To those accustomed to the heavy traffic of Madrid, the highway was almost an empty parking lot. A few cars roared past, speeding, but Peter was behaving himself and kept the town car under control. Near the lush, green city of Aranjuez, a former summer retreat for Spain's kings and queens, he left the N400 and turned the car north toward the A4 and Madrid, which was now fifty kilometers distant. The moon peeked out, spreading a silver glow across fields of newly planted strawberries, tomatoes, sugar beets, and wheat, as Randi leaned forward, resting her forearms on the back of the seat.

"Okay, Jon, who the hell do you work for?" The moment she said it, she regretted it. Irritable and confrontational. But dammit, she wanted to know. "Tell me it's not my dear, devious bosses at Langley lying through their teeth again."

"I'm here on my own, Randi. Peter believes me, right, Peter?"

Peter smiled behind the wheel. "It do stink a bit, you know. Not that I especially care, but I see Randi's point about her people. Behind her back and all that. Shouldn't like it myself."

Among Randi's finer traits was a laserlike focus, and she would worry a bone of contention with the tenacity of a pit bull. He had resisted long enough, it was time to trot out his believable lie.

"Okay, you're right," Jon told her. "There's something else going on, but it's not Langley. It's the army. Army intelligence sent me to find out whether Dr. Chambord actually did create a prototype operational DNA computer. And if he did, whether it and his research notes were stolen and the bombing a coverup."

She shook her head. "Langley never found you on the army intelligence roster."

"It's a one-shot. If they go high enough, they'll find me." He was confident of Fred Klein's deviousness.

She seemed to believe him this time, and for a moment he felt guilty. "See?" she said. "That wasn't so hard. Be careful, though truth can become addictive."

"Never heard it put that way," Peter said dryly.

Jon had a clear impression that Peter did not believe a word of his fiction, but at the same time, Peter did not care, either.

To the Brit, his own assignment came first, and he returned to it. "Let's get back to the mission. Since Chambord is alive and kidnapped, then something's not shipshape at the Paris police."

"You mean the fingerprint identification," Jon understood. "I've thought about that. The only way I can figure the Black Flame and Crescent Shield made that happen was a simple reverse. They planted a corpse in the Pasteur before they blew it up. Put the corpse right on top of the bomb, except for the lower arms and hands the police found. They must've cut those off and planted them far enough away that at least one had a good chance of being recoverable, but close enough to be battered by the explosion. Then they had someone substitute the corpse's prints for Chambord's in his file. They also could've substituted DNA information, in case less identifiable body parts survived. Once the Paris police had a reason to make an identification one way or the other, they'd be satisfied. They'd have bigger problems to deal with, such as the DNA computer."

Randi thought about it. "The terrorists must've sweated blood when it took so long for the remains to be found. Not that it mattered much, since the police would assume they hadn't found his body yet."

"Wonder how they managed to sneak a corpse in at all? Could have scuttled their entire plan had they been spotted," Peter said. "Curious."

"I think," Jon suggested slowly, "the corpse simply walked in with them, unknowing, or maybe he was a dedicated martyr for Islam, counting on a guaranteed place in heaven."

"Good God," Randi breathed.

"Another type of suicide bomber," Peter said. "What's the world becoming?"

They were silent with the implications. Finally, Jon asked, "We've both told you how we got here, Peter. How about you?"

"Fair enough question. After the bombing, M16 spotted a known Basque separatist in Paris, Elizondo Ibarguengoitia. The Second Bureau had missed him. MI6 factored that information into what the French told Whitehall about the other Basque that they did pick up, and it seemed like a chance to steal a march on the Second Bureau that was too good to miss. As it happened, I'd crossed berets with Elizondo more than once, so my assignment was to tail the bugger and see what mischief I might uncover." He stared ahead at the highway. "My nose for chicanery also tells me Whitehall would not be averse to snatching the thingamajig for Queen and country, eh, and my unofficial status could give deniability should the grab go wrong."

"As I expect would every other government and military," Jon observed, "including my own."

While Randi and Peter pondered this, Jon leaned back and let his head rest against the leather seat. He gazed out the windshield. The moon was lower in the sky, leaving a vast sweep of stars in the La Mancha sky. When he looked at such a brilliant display, he knew the earth and the universe would always be here. When he dealt with his fellow species, he was not as sure.

His gaze still up on the stars, he said, "You know, it's obvious we're all under the usual strict orders to play it close, tell nothing to anyone, especially agents of any other country on the same quest." He glanced at Peter and then back at Randi. "All of us have said the insane rivalry, even within our own governments, will destroy us. This one has all the potential for an Armageddon. My guess is that the Crescent Shield is planning a big bang somewhere. Probably against the United States. Maybe against Britain. Don't you both think it's time to cooperate? We know we can trust each other."

Randi hesitated, then gave a sharp nod. "I agree. Mauritania's gone to a lot more trouble than usual to cover his tracks, even to using another terrorist group as a cover, and now we know he has both the molecular computer and Chambord. The threat is too enormous to hold back, no matter what Langley or the army thinks."

Peter's careful eyes became less closed. He gave a short nod. "Right, cooperation it is. Bugger Whitehall and Washington."

"Good," Jon said. "Now, Peter, why were you really talking to General Henze?"

"It wasn't Henze, it was Jerry Matthias."

"The general's master sergeant?" Jon was surprised.

Peter nodded. "He used to be special forces. We met in the Iraqi desert some years back, and I wanted to see what I could pump out of him."

"About what?"

"Some odd shenanigans at NATO."

"What 'shenanigans'?" Randi demanded. "You're being difficult again."

Peter sighed. "Sorry, old habit. All right, I uncovered a phone call to Elizondo Ibarguengoitia from inside NATO. When I traced the number, it was from a maintenance office that had supposedly been locked at the time."

Randi was shocked. "The Black Flame, or Crescent Shield, has a spy inside NATO?"

"That'd be one answer," Peter agreed.

"Or someone at NATO," Jon speculated, "was, or is, working with the Black Flame or Crescent Shield to get the molecular computer."

"That'd be another answer," Peter agreed. "Sergeant Matthias is a former Green Beret and now the majordomo for your General Henze. I'd hoped he'd kept his eyes open from old habit. Unfortunately, he'd seen nothing especially suspicious. Still, the Black Flame was a live lead, so that's when I left to go after them in Toledo."

"I'll bet the Black Flame's no longer a live lead," Randi said. "Anyone want to give me odds their leadership's dead?"

"I don't like to bet against a sure thing," Peter said. "The Mauritania Smart bloke like that, he's figured out how you found him, Jon. With luck, he doesn't know about me."

"The Black Flame is a cover that went bad," Jon agreed. "Mauritania would've kept them in the dark, knowing they could turn on him, extort him, interfere in any number of ways with his plans. What he didn't figure on was that they'd lead someone like me to him. He's got to have killed them by now, and not just for retribution but to make sure they can't hurt him anymore."

As he thought that, Jon's mind returned to Marty. He realized that the better part of a day had passed since he had checked on him. The welfare of his oldest friend preyed upon his mind, and he pulled out his cell phone.

Randi looked across at him. "Who're you calling?"

"The hospital. Maybe Marty's awake."

Peter gave a curt nod of agreement. "With, one hopes, an earful to tell us that will help with the daunting task of relocating Mauritania and his Crescent Shield."

But the word from the Pompidou Hospital was not what Jon had hoped: little change in Marty's condition. They continued to be hopeful, but Dr. Zellerbach's progress had not accelerated.

Chapter Seventeen

Disturbed, Lieutenant General Sir Arnold Moore sat alone in the backseat of the Royal Air Force station commander's staff car and pondered the secret meeting in the conference room aboard the Charles de Gaulle that he had just left. What was going on? Why had his old ally and friend Roland la Porte really assembled them? As the bright lights of planes landing and taking off from the crown colony's airport streaked past, he stared ahead unseeing, worriedly analyzing the evening's discussion. Ultimately, it all ended up on the shoulders of General La Porte.

Everyone recognized that the French had a strong nostalgia for past glory, but everyone also knew that they were a practical lot, and that, at La Porte's lofty government level at least, la gloire was something of a joke. Although La Porte, both privately and as NATO's second in command, favored the combined European Rapid Reaction Force, Sir Arnold had always believed it was for rational reasons that it would ease the pressure on NATO, which depended so heavily on the United States when intervening in disagreements small and large around the planet. In fact, La Porte was known to emphasize that reasoning with Washington.

But now the French general had shifted to overt anti-Americanism. Or had he? Was the European integrated military that he proposed simply a logical extension of his desire to relieve Americans of the burden to do most of the job? Sir Arnold fervently hoped so, because the other justification could be the first salvo in a dangerous vision of Europe as a second and rival superpower to the Americans in this new, post-Cold War, terrorist-filled world. It was never wise to divide one's fronts, which both Hitler and Napoleon had learned to their chagrin. Now, more than ever, it seemed to Sir Arnold that the civilized world must stand united.

Despite the anti-American rhetoric, Sir Arnold would certainly have accepted the former view had it not been for what appeared to have been La Porte's fleeting suggestion that America could soon face an electronic-attack that would shut down all its command and communication controls. Of course horrifyingly that would make the U.S. military helpless, as well as any European force that depended on it.

Taken together with the scattered electronic crashes in those secret systems that were already occurring which Sir Arnold should have been the only one there to know about he was more than startled. He was deeply alarmed.

Had La Porte learned about them, too? If so, how was that possible?

Sir Arnold had the information only because President Castilla had personally informed the prime minister, explaining that the U.K. was the only ally he was alerting, while the only NATO official he was telling was its supreme European commander, General Henze.

So how had French General La Porte learned of the terrifying electronic attacks?

Sir Arnold dug his knuckles into his forehead. He had a dreadful headache, and he knew the cause: He was worried that La Porte was somehow connected to whoever was causing the electronic crashes, and that was why and how he had the information.

The British general could barely consider the possibility. The whole thing was unthinkable, preposterous, and yet he could not ignore the logic of it. He could not escape his worried conclusions about La Porte. He must not speak of them to anyone but the PM himself. And it must be in person.

This kind of speculation, which might be wrong but would still tarnish a good man's reputation, could be trusted to not just anyone. Which was why he sat alone in the backseat of the dark command car, waiting for his personal driver and pilot to oversee the servicing and refueling of the Tornado F3 jet that would speed them to London.

As he waited, he continued to mull the entire bizarre meeting. Had he been mistaken? Was he overreacting? But every time he raised those questions, he was more convinced: He was worried about what La Porte's hints implied, and the ghastly danger they suggested.

He was rehearsing the words he would use to communicate these conclusions to the PM when Stebbins tapped on the closed car window. He opened the door.

Sir Arnold looked up. "We ready, George?"

"Sir!" Staff Sergeant George Stebbins inclined his head to signal the affirmative.

"A simple yes would do nicely, George. You're not a company sergeant major in the Grenadiers now, you know." He climbed out of the car, briefcase in hand.

"Nossir. Thank you, sir."

Sir Arnold sighed and shook his head. You could get the man out of the guards, but you could almost never get the guards out of the man. "You think, former Sergeant Major Stebbins, that when your warrant is final, you could forget the household brigade, just a little?"

Stebbins finally smiled. "S'pose I could try, sir."

Sir Arnold chuckled. "All right, Stebbins. I appreciate a straight answer and an honest effort. So what do you say to our finding out if you remember how to fly that thing out there?"

They entered the station ready room to put on their insulated suits and helmets for the high-level flight, and twenty minutes later, Stebbins, in the pilot's seat, was taxiing the sleek jet across the dark airfield to the runway. In the navigator's seat directly behind Stebbins sat Sir Arnold, who continued to rehearse the shocking news that he must deliver to the PM, certainly to the defense minister as well, and probably to old Colin Campbell, who was commander in chief now.

The supersonic Tornado took off and soon left behind Gibraltar, the southernmost point of Europe. It streaked high through the sky, far above the clouds. The dramatic panorama of stars against the black velvet sky always made Sir Arnold choke up, because he believed in God. Surely no other force could have created such beauty. He was alternately thinking about that and worrying what General La Porte was up to when, out of hearing of anyone on earth, the aircraft exploded in a massive burst of flame. From below, the fireball looked simply like another shooting star.

Madrid had a vibrant energy all its own, and residents and visitors alike reveled in it, particularly at night. Palpitating music and a festive spirit infused the air. From rushing taxis to unrepentant fun, Madrilnes were a tolerant people, occasionally known to flaunt their anarchist streak in a search for a wild time amid the cobbled streets and pretty fountains under big, old trees.

Peter left the borrowed touring car in the garage of its owner, a trusted friend, then led Jon and Randi onto the metro. Carrying their few pieces of luggage, they kept careful watch everywhere, fighting off the conflicting emotions of urgency and mental exhaustion, although Randi and Jon had each taken good naps during the drive, while Peter, the stalwart Brit, had already had more sleep than either of them and so had driven them on in to Madrid.

With relief, they disembarked at the San Bernardo metro station and entered the Malasana, known to locals as the Barrio de Maravillas, or District of Miracles. Here in the city's colorful bohemian quarter, nightlife was in abundance, and they passed bars, restaurants, and clubs, some a bit decayed but always charming. But then, this was a haven for not only artists and writers but expatriate yuppies who toted their dreams and assumptions with them around the world. Everywhere Jon, Randi, and Peter walked, lively music vibrated out into the streets.

The MI6 safe house was on Calle Dominguin, not far from Plaza del Dos de Mayo, the hub of this spirited area. It was a six-story stone building in a row of identical attached and semi-attached stone buildings, with painted wood shutters, shuttered doors that opened onto traditional iron balconies, and shops and restaurants on the street level below. The odors of liquor and cigarette smoke drifted along the street as Jon, Randi, and Peter arrived at the address. Advertisements for Langostino Plancha and Gambas al Ajillo showed in the dark windows of the first-floor shop.

They stopped at an inconspicuous door, and Jon and Randi kept watch as Peter unlocked it. With a final look all around, they slipped inside and upstairs.

The place was decorated with comfortable furniture that had seen better days, but then, a safe house's purpose had nothing to do with being a decorator's showplace. They chose bedrooms, changed into casual trousers and shirts, and met in the second-floor living room.

Jon announced, "I'd better contact army intelligence." He used his cell phone to dial Fred Klein. As the phone's electronic codes and numbers were scanned and cleared, there were the usual clicks, silences, and hums.

Finally, Fred's voice announced simply: "Not a word. Hang up. Now."

The line went dead, and Jon quickly switched off the phone. Startled, dismayed, he muttered, "Damn. There's more trouble." He repeated what his "army contact" had said.

"Maybe it'll be different with Langley," Randi said, and dialed her cell phone. The phone in far-off Virginia rang for a long time, and she grimaced and shrugged at Jon and Peter. "Nothing yet."

At last there was a short, sharp series of clicks. "Russell?"

"Who did you expect?"

"Hang up."

Randi clicked the cell phone off. "What the hell could it be?"

"Sounds to me as if someone's compromised your secure dedicated electronic intelligence communications systems," Peter decided. "Which could also mean those at SIS in London, including MI5 and MI6."

Randi swallowed hard. "Good God. At least they didn't learn anything from us."

"Ah," Peter told her, "but I'm afraid they might have."

"Yes," Jon said, understanding. "They could know now where you and I both are, Randi, assuming they're interested, know who they're tracking, and have the DNA computer up and running."

"That's a lot of 'ifs,' Jon. You said the machine wasn't at the farmhouse, and the last we saw of Mauritania's people, they were taking off in helicopters."

"All too true," Peter said. "But I doubt the prototype's ever far away from Mauritania, which makes me think they had a second safe house nearby and used that farmhouse to meet and pay off Elizondo and his Basques and store the Chambords. Which is why I will not call London. Too bloody close to Madrid. I think we need to assume for the time being that all our electronics are under siege. Which means it's entirely possible they have a bead on you two now. They don't necessarily know about me, but if I whip out my cell phone and report into MI6, there's the chance they'll figure out about me faster than a hare across the highlands, and about MI6."

"It's ridiculous to have to hop on planes and fly home to report in person," Randi decided. "But it's true we used to do business this way, with messengers hand-carrying information back and forth. Good Lord, we could be going back to the Dark Ages in intelligence."

"Goes to show how dependent we've become on our oh-so-convenient electronic communications," Peter said. "Still, we must somehow figure out how to contact our superiors about the Crescent Shield, Mauritania, the DNA machine, and the Chambords. They must be told."

"True." Jon pushed his cell phone back into his pocket with a gesture of finality. "But until we can, we're going to have to operate on our own. Looks to me as if Mauritania himself is our best hope to track. Where he likes to operate, hide out. What his mental quirks are." In intelligence, quirks, patterns, and habits were often a fugitive's weak spots, revealing to experienced analyses far more than anyone might guess. "And then there's the elusive Captain Darius Bonnard. As General La Porte's aide, he's got damned high access and cover. And he of course could've made the phone call from NATO."

Peter's leathery face showed deep worry lines. "All true. And Randi's probably right about the wisdom of getting back to old-fashioned intelligence communications." He suggested, "London's a lot closer than Washington. If need be, I can flog myself over there to cheek in."

"Our embassies in Madrid will have fully coded communications," Randi said. "But considering the last assault when every code was cracked, the embassies' communications are probably compromised, too."

"Right. Anything electronic is out," Peter said.

Jon paced in front of a stone fireplace that looked as if it'd had no fire in years. "Maybe they didn't disrupt everything everywhere," he said cautiously.

Peter looked at him sharply. "You have an idea, Jon?"

"Is there a real phone in this house? Nothing electronic."

"On the third floor, in the office. That just might work."

Randi glared from one to the other. "You two mind telling me what you're talking about?"

Jon was halfway up the stairs as Peter said, "Regular phone wires. A direct call. Fiber-optics, don't you know."

"Of course." She followed Jon, Peter close behind. "Even if the Crescent Shield had the technology or the time to tap a cable, they'd still have all the problems of sorting through the dreck. A technician told me once that so much data went through fiber-optics lines that to tap into it was like getting sprayed in the face by a high-pressure hose." She had been told a cable as narrow as her wrist could carry an astronomical forty thousand phone conversations all at once, comparable to the entire trans-Atlantic voice traffic handled by satellites back in Cold War days. The way fiber-optics worked was to translate phone calls, faxes, e-mail messages, and data files into beams of light that traveled through a single strand of glass as thin as a human hair. Most undersea cables contained eight such strands, or fibers. But extracting the data required gaining access to the minute light beams in the ocean's black, high-pressure depths a dangerous, almost impossible task.

Peter grumbled agreement: "Even if they had the time and technology to tap a cable, would they waste their time listening in to a million long-distance phone calls, give or take, discussing in detail Aunt Sarah's bunions and the Queen Mum's shocking gin intake? I doubt it."

"Exactly," Randi agreed.

As soon as the threesome reached the bare-bones office, Jon tapped his calling card number into the telephone on the desk. Then he entered the number he wanted in Washington. As he waited for it to ring, he pulled out the desk chair and sat. Peter leaned on a nearby desk, and Randi fell into an old, padded rocker.

A brisk female voice answered. "Colonel Hakkim's office."

"It's Jon Smith, Debbie. I need to talk to Newton. It's urgent."

"Hold on."

The strange vacuum of hold, and a man's concerned voice: "Jon? What's up?"

"I'm in Madrid, and I need a favor. Could you send someone over to E block to the Leased Facilities Division and office 2E377, and have him tell the woman there to tell her boss to call Zapata at this number?" He read the number of the safe house phone. "Make sure whoever you send uses that name Zapata. Can you do it?"

"Should I ask what this is all about or who's really in that office?"

"No."

"Then I'll go myself."

"Thanks, Newton."

Newton's voice was cool and calm, but Jon heard anxiety, too. "You'll have to tell me the whole story when you get back."

"Count on it." Jon hung up and checked his watch. "It should take him about ten minutes. E block's a long way from his office. Figure another two minutes for contingencies. Twelve minutes, tops."

Randi said, "Leased Facilities Division? A cover for army intelligence, no doubt?"

"No doubt," Jon said noncommittally.

Peter pressed a finger to his lips and padded to the shuttered front window, which was next to the shuttered door that opened onto the balcony. He angled the slats open a fraction wider and looked down at the dark street. He stood there motionless as the pulsing night sounds of the city drifted up from below the rumble of heavy traffic on the Gran Via, voices calling from windows down to the street, the slam of a car door, a drunk's serenade, a guitar's liquid chords.

Peter left the window and sank onto the sofa, relieved. "False alarm I think."

"What's wrong?" Randi asked.

"I thought I heard an odd sound from the street. It's something I've run across a few times before and learned rather quickly to heed."

"I didn't hear anything unusual," Jon said.

"You're not meant to, my boy. It's a blowing sound, with a tiny whistle at the center. It seems to be far away, the call of a weak whippoorwill, that simply fades away. In reality, it's a muted whistle no one actually hears. Resembles a random night sound the wind, an animal turning in sleep, the earth itself creaking as if it really were set in a three-pronged nest. I heard it more than once in northern Iran on the border of the old Soviet Union's central Asian republics, and in the 1980s I heard it in Afghanistan during that barbarous blowup. It's a signal used by the central Asian Muslim tribes. Rather close to night signals your Iroquois and Apache used."

"The Crescent Shield?" Jon asked.

"Could be. But there was no answer to the call. Since I didn't hear it a second time, I was probably mistaken."

"How often have you been wrong on a matter like that, Peter?" Jon said.

The ring of the telephone made them jump. Jon grabbed the receiver.

Fred Klein's voice said, "We got everything back online, but the computer warfare specialists tell us that all the electronic encryption codes may have been cracked, so no one's to use any electronic communication until further notice. Nothing that goes through the air either, because that would be easy for them to tap into. Meanwhile, they're changing all the codes and developing emergency measures to protect them better. We've told them we think there's a DNA computer out there, and they've got to do more than try. Why Madrid? What did you find in Toledo?"

Without preamble, Jon reported, "The Black Flame was a hired front. The Crescent Shield seems to be the real power behind everything. And Emile Chambord is alive. Unfortunately, the Crescent Shield has both him and his daughter and the DNA computer."

There was a stunned silence. Klein said, "You saw Chambord? How do you know about the computer?"

"I saw and talked to both Chambord and his daughter. The computer wasn't at that site."

"Chambord alive explains how quickly they got the machine working, and makes the worldwide danger a hell of a lot worse. Especially if they have the daughter, too. They'll use her to control him."

"Yeah," Jon said.

Another silence. Klein said, "You should've killed Chambord, Colonel."

"The DNA computer wasn't there, Fred. I tried for the save, to get him out of there alive so he could build one for us to fight back. How do we know what they've forced Chambord to tell them? Maybe enough for another scientist to duplicate his work."

"What if you don't get a second chance, Jon? What if we don't find him or the machine in time?"

"We will."

"That's what I tell the president. But we both know there are no miracles, and the next time will be harder."

It was Jon's turn to be silent. Then, "I made a judgment call. That's what you pay me for. If in my judgment I can't pull Chambord out, or destroy the computer, I'll kill him. That make you happy?"

Klein's voice was as flat and hard as poured concrete. "Can I count on you, Colonel? Or do I have to send someone else?"

"There's no one else who knows what I know. Not in the beginning, and especially not now."

If the phone had been a television phone, they would have been staring each other down. Finally there was a slow outlet of breath in the far-off Pentagon. "Tell me about this Crescent Shield. Never heard of them."

"That's because they're newer and have stayed out of sight," Jon told him, repeating what Randi had said. "They're pan-Islamic, apparently pulled together for this specific attack by a man named Mauritania. He's"

"I know who he is, Jon. Only too well. Part Arab, part Berber, and with rage over the fate of his poor country and its starving people to add to his endemic Muslim and Third World rage about corporate globalization."

"Which, in truth, motivates these terrorists more than their religion."

"Yeah," Klein said. "What's your next step?"

"I'm with Randi Russell and Peter Howell now." He filled Klein in on how Randi and Peter had shown up at the farmhouse of the Crescent Shield.

There was another surprised hesitation. "Howell and Russell? CIA and MI6? What have you told them?"

"They're right here," Jon said, letting him know he could say no more.

"You haven't told them about Covert-One?" Klein demanded.

"Of course not." Jon kept the irritation from his voice.

"All right. Cooperate, but keep the confidence. Understood?"

Jon decided to let the admonition pass. "We need anything and everything you can dig up about Mauritania's personal history. Any patterns he's shown. Where he's most likely to hole up, where we should look for him."

Klein regrouped and said, "I can tell you one thing. He'll have chosen a secure hole to hide in and a carefully planned target we won't like one bit."

"How long will the electronic communications be compromised?"

"No way to tell. Could be until we find that computer. Meanwhile, we'll switch to couriers and drops, verbal and manual codes, and a dedicated surface phone line over secure diplomatic fiber-optic phone cables where we can monitor for any break-ins and fix them in seconds. We used to get a lot of intelligence accomplished that way in the old days, and we can do it again. The DNA computer won't help them there. That was smart to get to me through Colonel Hakkim. Here's the new secure private phone number they'll have up as fast as they can, so you can call direct next time."

Klein relayed the number, and Jon memorized it.

Klein continued, "What about General Henze and that hospital orderly who tried to kill Zellerbach?"

"False alarm. Turns out the 'orderly' was Peter guarding Marty for MI6. He ran because he couldn't taint his operation. He went to Henze's pension to interview Henze's sergeant, not the general." Jon explained what Peter had wanted with Sergeant Matthias.

"A phone call out of NATO headquarters? Damn, that doesn't sound good to me. How do we know Howell isn't lying?"

"He isn't," Jon snapped flatly, "and there are a lot of people at NATO. I'm already wondering about one of them, a Captain Bonnard. The Black Flame expected me in Toledo, so either I was tailed or they were tipped. Bonnard is the personal aide to a French general, Roland la Porte. He's the"

"I know who he is. Deputy supreme commander."

"Right. Bonnard is the one who gave La Porte the data about the fingerprints and DNA analysis in Chambord's file, proving he was dead. He also brought La Porte the file on the Black Flame and Toledo. His position with the general is ideal. Just where anyone would put a spy if they could. He'd have access to just about whatever he wanted in NATO, France, and most of Europe, in the name of the general."

"I'll see what I can dig up on Bonnard and on Sergeant Matthias. Meanwhile, you'd better go back to Henze. NATO's got Europe's most complete data on current terrorist groups and alliances. Whatever I can dig up here, I'll shoot over to Henze."

"That's it?" Jon asked.

"That's all no, wait! Damn. Because of Chambord and the Crescent Shield, I almost forgot. I just got a call from Pans that Marty Zellerbach started talking an hour ago. Out of the blue. Full sentences. Then he fell back asleep. Not much, and he's not completely coherent yet. That could be the Asperger's Syndrome, I suppose. But stop in Paris on your way to Brussels."

Excitement rushed through Jon. "I'll be there in two hours or less." He hung up and turned, almost laughing with relief. "Marty's out of the coma!"

"Jon, that's wonderful!" Randi flung her arms around his neck in a joyous hug.

He hugged back and swung her up off her feet.

From the sofa, Peter cocked his head, listening closely. And jumped up. "Quiet!" He ran back to the window and leaned toward it, listening intently. His thin, muscular body was like a coiled spring, taut, nervous.

"Did you hear it again?" Randi's whisper was tense.

He gave one sharp nod. He whispered back, "That same breathing whistle on the wind in the night. It was there. This time I'm certain. A signal. We'd better"

Above them, there was a faint clink of metal striking stone. Jon padded to the staircase and pressed his ear against the wall, feeling for vibrations.

"Someone's on the roof," he warned.

And then all three heard it: A strange sound, like a breathy whistle through the teeth of someone in restless sleep. Or perhaps from a lonely night bird far away. Not just from below, but from above. They were surrounded.

Chapter Eighteen

The harsh, splintering sound of a door being forced open below signaled the attack.

Randi jerked her head up. "The stairs!"

Her weapon aimed ahead of her, she sprinted from the office, her blond hair flashing with white light as she bolted past Jon.

Peter's leathery face was grim as he sped toward the shutters that covered the balcony door, snapping off lights as he ran. "Check the back windows."

As gloom descended, Jon raced through the bedroom behind the office to the rear, while at the stairwell Randi peered down and opened up with her HK MP5K in careful bursts of three. There was a scream from below, followed by the sound of feet and two wild shots. She held her fire.

In the sudden vacuum of sound, Jon checked out the windows. Beneath the safe house, the back patio appeared inhabited only by benches and plants awash in moonlight and shadows. He studied the area, looking for movement, but then heard a muted shuffle in the office behind him.

As he tore back to investigate, there was a choking gasp. Jon stopped just inside the door. Peter was crouched over the fallen figure of a man in black street clothes, wearing heavy black gloves, and a flat hat like those worn by Afghan mujahedeen. His head and face were completely hidden by a black balaclava.

"Glad you haven't lost your touch." Jon stepped past Peter to check the balcony. It was empty, except for a nylon rope that dangled from the roof. "Not particularly clever, but it got him inside."

Peter wiped the blood from his old Fairbairn-Sykes stiletto on the attacker's pants. "Fellow thought he was quiet as a dormouse." He peeled up the balaclava, revealing brown, sun-dried skin, a beard trimmed short, and an expression of outrage. "I've got a plan. If I'm right about their plan, it should give us a chance."

"And if you're wrong?"

There was another burst of gunfire from Randi on the stairs followed by another cry of pain from below. Eerie silence again settled over the safe house.

Peter shrugged. "Then we're probably cooked, as the goose said to the gander."

Jon hunched down beside him in the shadows. "Tell me what you have in mind."

"We're in a box, true. But they're in a bind, because we've shown sharp teeth, and the gunshots will bring the police. They know that. They must make their move soon. Any forced action leads to carelessness and thus errors. They attacked openly from the street level, which I think was cover to send our dead friend here" he gestured at the corpse at his feet" to hold the balcony, while others would come down from the roof to trap us between them and the bottom assault team."

"So why don't we hear a charge down the stairs from up top? What are they waiting for?"

"I suspect for a signal from the forward reconnoiterer this poor sod here. A weakness in their plan, and now we can take advantage of that weakness." Peter put on the dead man's balaclava and flat Afghan hat. He stepped out onto the balcony.

Seconds later, Jon heard the soft night-whistle signal once more. This time it came from Peter. Soon after, a door creaked upstairs. An old door, warped and damaged by the weather where it opened onto the roof, as was true of so many Madrid buildings.

Peter stepped back into the room. "That should do it."

Jon ran into the room he had chosen as his bedroom, aimed his Sig Saner at his laptop, and fired. He was going on the run, and the laptop could hold him back. He sped back across the landing and told Randi, "Fire a burst, and get in here."

Randi shot one volley, then a second, and bolted back into the office, where she joined Jon on the balcony. Peter was already climbing the rope, while Jon steadied it with both hands, one foot anchoring it.

Randi gazed down warily. The street was deserted, but she could almost feel the eyes of terrified innocents hiding in doorways and behind windows, poised to flee, but also drawn almost hypnotically to witness others' violence and danger. It was that atavistic grip of the hunt, the ancient will to survive that lurked in the Cro-Magnon brain and influenced so many human actions.

Jon looked up and saw that Peter had reached the top. "You next," he breathed into her ear. "Go."

She slung her submachine gun over her back and jumped up onto the balcony railing. She grabbed the rope, and as Jon continued to steady it climbed. She saw Peter extend his head over the roof parapet to make sure she followed safely. He touched his forehead in salute and vanished, his teeth white in a Cheshire cat grin. She climbed harder, faster, worried because Jon was exposed where he stood alone on the balcony, but it could not be helped.

Meanwhile, as Jon held the rope, he surveyed carefully all around for trouble. His Sig Sauer seemed very far away, although it was simply tucked into his holster. He looked up, noting Randi's rapid progress. His chest tight, he saw what an easy target she was for anyone who spotted her. As he was thinking that, footsteps sounded: They were searching the rooms on the floor directly above him. They would be down to this floor any moment. And now the undulating wail of police cars had begun. Yes, they were heading in this direction.

With relief he saw Randi had disappeared onto the roof. He jumped up and climbed, hand over hand as fast as he could, his fingers and palms burning on the corded nylon. He had been lucky so far, but now he must be on the roof before the terrorists discovered their dead comrade, and before the police arrived. Second only to staying alive was not being caught by the police.

Alarmed oaths in Arabic came from inside the house below as the terrorists found the body of their comrade and the destroyed laptop. At that moment, Jon reached the roof. He gave a powerful final pull, surged over the edge, and flopped onto the shallow slope of red tiles, still holding to the rope to keep from sliding backward. With a tug, the rope moved, dragging him up toward the ridge line. He could see the top of Peter's head. As he slid over headfirst and started to fall, Randi grabbed his shoulders to keep him from nose-diving onto flagstones, He shoulder-rolled up onto his feet and looked around. They were in a small, rooftop garden.

"Nice job." Peter sliced through the rope, and the cut end rushed back over the rooftop. A shout of rage rose from below, followed by a despairing shriek and crash.

Without another word, the three agents leaped, grabbed the peak of the rooftop, and pulled themselves up to their feet Straddling it, they ran carefully, one after the other, Jon in the lead, jumping gaps and dodging birds' nests as fast as they could without slipping and falling the six stories to the ground. They were five attached roofs away from the safe house when their pursuers burst up and out to the rooftop garden behind them.

As a fusillade of shots buzzed, whined, and ricocheted around them, they dropped flat on the other side of the incline, only their fingers exposed to the gunfire as they gripped the rough tiles that crowned the peak. Below, police cars were roaring onto Calle Dominguin There were angry Spanish shouts and running feet.

"¡Cuidado!"

"¡Vamos a sondear el ambiente!"

As the police consulted below, Jon was thinking about their attackers. "They'll try to get ahead of us, break into any building they can, and find a way to get up here and cut us off."

Randi said nothing. The street lamps had been shot out, and the two police cars were parked side by side in the middle of the street, their headlights on bright, doors wide open. "It's the Policia Municipal,'' she decided as the men ran behind the cars for protection, shotguns pointing out and around like porcupine quills, while one grabbed his radio phone and shouted into it. "He's probably summoning shock units of the Nacionals or the Guardia Civil antiterrorist units. We should be out of here when they arrive. They'll have too much firepower, and too many inconvenient questions."

"I'll second that," Peter agreed.

Randi listened. "They say they've got a witness who saw our attackers, and the police have deduced terrorists may be behind the trouble tonight."

"That'll take some of the heat off us."

Jon saw a head pop up above the balcony railing on the safe house five buildings back. The terrorist fired a burst from an Uzi. Jon quickly pulled himself up so that his armpits were caught on the ridge, aimed carefully, and returned fire. There was a yelp and a curse as the terrorist pulled back inside the safe house, his arm bloody.

"They'll try to hold us here until their buddies get ahead of us," Jon said.

"Then we best be on our way." Peter's pale gaze swept the area. "You see that taller apartment building at the end of this row? If we can reach it and climb up to the roof, it looks as if it leads to those two other apartment buildings. We may be able to get to the next street from there, where it'll be easier to lose them."

The heads of two terrorists rose above the wall that rimmed the safe house's roof garden. Jon, Randi, and Peter immediately dropped back behind the ridge, and the terrorists laid down a line of withering fire. But as soon as there was a pause, the trio rose again, returned fire, and when the terrorists ducked, the agents jumped up and ran. They had almost reached the taller apartment building that was their goal when another hail of bullets and polyglot shouts burst out from the rear. Gunshots slammed into the building's wall, shattered windows, and raised shouts of terror from within the apartments.

"Inside!" Jon made a headlong dive through a shattered apartment window. Two terrified women in nightgowns sat bolt upright in twin beds and screamed, sheets pulled tight against their throats, eyes wide in horror.

Randi and Peter dove in after him, and as Peter rolled to his feet, he bowed to the frightened women and apologized in flawless Castilian, "Lo siento," as he rushed after Randi and Jon, through the apartment, and out into a broad corridor. One of them was leaving a trail of blood drops.

They passed the elevator and ran up the fire stairs, not pausing to check for wounds until they reached a fire exit that opened onto a wide, flat roof.

"Who's hurt?" Jon puffed. "Randi?"

"It looks like all of us, especially you." She pointed.

There were long, bloody furrows on Jon's left arm and shoulder under his ripped shirt and a narrower slash on his left cheek where he had gone headfirst through the shattered window with its jagged wedges of glass. Randi and Peter had lesser cuts, a few bruises, and a couple of bloody creases from the gunfire.

While Jon ripped the left sleeve off his shirt and Randi used it to bind the deeper gashes on his arm, Peter was scrutinizing the street below where it intersected with Calle Dominguin.

Randi studied the long, broad roof behind them as she bandaged. "We could hold off an attack from where we are, but there's no point. Our situation would only get worse, especially once more police arrive."

Peter spoke from the parapet, still looking down: "It's going to be a dicey thing, one way or the other. Looks like the buggers are circling the block to head us off, and there appears to be enough of them to cover all exits."

Randi cocked her head, listening. "We'd better do something quick. They're starting up after us."

Randi finished wrapping Jon's wounds, and Peter ran from the parapet to join them. Randi pulled open the roof door. Three masked terrorists armed with an Uzi, an AK-74, and what looked like an old Luger pistol were halfway up the stairs. In the lead was a burly ruffian with a black beard so great that it sprouted out from beneath his black balaclava.

Without hesitation, Randi squeezed off a short burst of her MP5K, sending the fellow falling back onto the two behind him. One of them, in baggy jeans and a T-shirt as black as his balaclava, leaped over his fallen comrade, firing up as he climbed. Randi cut him down, too, while the third tripped over his own feet as he frantically escaped.

Peter broke into a run. "The next roof!"

They sprinted across the building, jumped the short space to the next one, and ran on. A series of shots sounded far behind from the third terrorist, who had braved coming out onto the roof and was now blazing away with the old Luger with little chance to hit them at this distance even if they had been standing still.

"Damn!" Randi skidded to a stop, staring ahead.

Three roofs away, on a building on the street that paralleled Calle Domingum, four figures had emerged. Their silhouettes, rifles cradled in their arms, stood out against the stars.

"Listen!" Jon said.

Behind them on Calle Dominguin, heavy vehicles had arrived. Now there was the clatter of booted feet jumping down to the pavement, of officers bawling orders in Spanish. The antiterrorist units were on site. Seconds later, that soft sighing whistle seemed to come from nowhere and hang suspended in the night air. Before the signal had faded, the four silhouettes on the distant roof spun around, ran back to the door, and were gone.

Peter looked behind. The terrorist with the Luger had retreated, too. "The bloody thugs are bunking," he said, relieved. "Now all we have to do is get past the police. Which, I'm afraid, will not be easy, especially if they really are the antiterrorist Guardia Civil units."

"We'll go separately," Jon decided. "A change of clothes would be helpful."

Peter eyed Randi. "Especially the lady's black tights and all."

Randi turned her cool gaze on him. "The lady will take care of herself, thank you. Let's agree where we'll go next. For me, it's Paris, Marty, and my CIA station chief."

"I'm for Paris, too," Peter said.

"Where will you go, Jon?" Randi asked innocently. "To report to your army intelligence bosses?"

Jon could hear Klein's voice in his ear: Tell them nothing. He said, "Let's just say I'll catch up with you in Brussels, after I've been to NATO headquarters."

"Right. Sure." But Randi smiled. "Okay, after we do what we have to, we'll meet in Brussels, Jon. I know the proprietor of the Caf Egmont in old town. Drop a message there when you're ready. That goes for both of you."

They said "good luck" all around. Randi ran lightly toward the building's rooftop exit door, a stunning figure in her tight black working clothes and pale blond hair. The men watched her, then Peter jogged toward the fire escape, his lean, lined face inscrutable. Left alone, Jon walked to the parapet and stared down. The antiterrorist units, with their heavier weapons and flak jackets, were spreading out. There were no alarms, no shooting, no activity of any kind beyond their methodical dispersal. As for the terrorists, they appeared to have vanished.

Jon ran across the rooftops to the farthest building he could reach and took the interior stairs down. At each door, he paused to listen. On the third floor he found what he wanted: Inside, a television was on. He heard the volume decrease, a window creak open, and a man's voice shout down to the street, "¿Que paso, Antonio?"

A voice called up in Spanish, "Didn't you hear all the shooting, Cela? There was a terrorist battle. The police are all over the area."

"Despus de todo lo ocurrido, eso nada mas me faltabd. ¡Adios!"

Jon heard the window close and waited for the man to speak to anyone else in the apartment. But the only sound was of the television, the volume again raised.

Jon knocked sharply and announced in peremptory Spanish, "Policia. We need to speak with you."

He heard swearing. Soon the door was flung open, and a heavy man in a dressing gown with a potbelly glowered at him. "I been home here all"

Jon pressed the muzzle of his Sig Sauer into the man's stomach. "Sorry. Inside, por favor."

Five minutes later, dressed in a pair of pants and a sports jacket from the man's closet, a white shirt with the collar open, and the dressing gown over everything all far too big in the waist Jon tied and gagged the Spaniard and left. He sauntered down the stairs to the street, where he joined a group of alarmed residents who were watching the police unit as it stopped before the apartment building. In their dark combat gear, the officers rushed in, leaving two behind to interrogate the onlookers. After a few questions, the pair sent one resident after another back into their buildings.

When the officers finally reached Jon, he told them he had seen nothing and no one, and lived in the previous building, which they had already searched. The police officer ordered him back to his "own" building, and moved on to the next interview. When Jon was sure the officer's back was turned, he crossed the street into the shadows of the far sidewalk, rounded the corner, and discarded the dressing gown.

At the San Bernardo metro station, he took the next train, where he picked up a discarded copy of El Pas, one of Madrid's daily newspapers, from one of the seats, and buried his face in it, using his peripheral vision to watch for tails. Soon he transferred to line eight, and from there he rode out to Aeropuerto de Barajas. Just before entering the terminal, he found a large waste bin. He checked quickly to make certain he had still not been detected. Then he dropped his Sig Sauer into the soiled paper cups and wrappers and, with a pang of regret, watched it sink. He tossed the newspaper on top.

With nothing but his stolen clothes, wallet, passport, and cell phone, he bought a ticket for the next Brussels flight. After he phoned Fred Klein using the new number that was thankfully up and running and arranged to have a change of clothes, a uniform, and a weapon delivered to him in Brussels, he sat down in the waiting room, where he read his detective novel.

The Brussels flight was departing from the next gate, but he saw no sign of Randi. About ten minutes before his plane was to board, a tall Muslim woman wearing the traditional black head covering and long black robes a pushi and abaya, not the chador, which covered the eyes as well as the head and body sat down across the aisle from him. He watched her unobtrusively. She sat immobile, her hands hardly visible, looking at no one. Her face was modestly lowered.

Then he heard that same strange, soft sound that seemed almost a part of the wind. It gave him a start. Obviously there was no wind inside this modern, bustling airlines terminal, at least none that was natural. He looked sharply at the woman who was swathed in black, instantly regretting that he no longer had his Sig Sauer.

She seemed to sense his interest. She looked up, gazed boldly into his eyes, and winked. And humbly bowed her head. Jon repressed a smile. Peter had fooled him. The faint strains of a whistled tune reached his ears" Rule Britannia." The old SAS trooper loved his little jokes and amusements.

When his flight was finally called, Jon was still scanning all around for Randi, his stomach tight with worry. She had been first to leave. She should have arrived here by now.

After leaving Peter and Jon, Randi had run down the central staircase, stopping to knock on doors until she found an apartment on the first floor where there was no response. She picked the lock, hurried inside, and discovered a closet filled with flamboyant women's clothes. She chose a tight skirt that flared wide below the hips and looked as if it had been designed for the swirl of a flamenco dancer. Quickly she put it on as well as a peasant blouse and high-heeled black pumps. She shook out her hair so it was loose and fluffy around her head, and then she hung her MP5K submachine gun under the skirt from her waist.

The apartment building was quiet, and she was just beginning to relax, when she reached the front entry hall with its fake palms and expensive oriental carpeting. But through the glass panel on the front door she could see five masked men running toward her, glancing warily back over their shoulders as if they were being chased. She felt a burst of fear. The terrorists.

She retrieved her weapon, wheeled around, yanked open a door beneath the stairs, and dashed down into a dark basement. Breathing hard, she listened intently. As the basement door opened above again, she sprinted away from the light, batting aside spiderwebs. Feet clattered down. The door closed, and sooty darkness spread. Men grumbled in Arabic, and she realized from their conversation that they had not noticed her. The five were here because they were hiding, too.

Out on the street, some kind of heavy vehicle screeched to a stop, booted feet pounded the pavement, and orders were given in Spanish. The Guardia Civil shock troops had arrived, and they were spreading out to hunt for the terrorists.

Inside the basement, the men's voices were angry now, continuing low in Arabic:

"Who are you, Abu Auda, to tell us to die for Allah? You've never even seen Mecca or Medina. You may speak our language, but not a single drop of the blood of the prophets runs in your veins. You're a Fulani, a mongrel."

A deep voice, hard and tight, sneered, "You're a coward who doesn't deserve the name of Ibrahim. If you believe in the Prophet, how can you be so afraid to die a martyr's death?"

"Afraid to die? No, black one. That's not it at all. We were beaten today. But that's just today. There'll be better times. To die senselessly is an affront to Islam."

A third voice said contemptuously, "You tremble like a timid woman, Ibrahim."

And a fourth: "I stand with Ibrahim. He's proved himself over more years than you've lived. We're warriors, not fanatics. Let the mullahs and imams prattle of jihad and martyrdom. I speak of victory, and a Spanish prison has many doors for those who'll fight on for Allah."

The deep voice asked quietly, "You'll surrender, then? You, too, Ibrahim? And Ali as well?"

"It's wise," the first voice, Ibrahim, announced with a tremor of fear. "M. Mauritania will find some way to free us quickly, because he needs all his fighters to strike his great blows against our enemies."

The contemptuous voice was impatient. "You know there's no time to free any of us. We've got to fight our way out now like men, or die for Allah."

More angry arguments from the trio who favored surrender were abruptly cut off by three low, sharp sounds. Silenced gunfire. Probably from the same weapon. Randi listened as the silence stretched for what seemed minutes but was probably only seconds. She kept her MP5K aimed into the impenetrable darkness toward the sounds of the shots. Her stomach tightened into a knot.

At last the voice that had spoken third, the man who claimed to be ready to die, asked softly, "So you'll kill me, too, Abu Auda? I was the only one who dared to stand with you against the other three."

"It's unfortunate. But you look too much like an Arab, and you don't speak Spanish. All men can be made to reveal what they know under the right circumstances. You're a risk. However, a single black man such as myself who does speak Spanish can perhaps escape."

Randi could almost hear the other man nod. "I'll greet Allah in your name, Abu Auda. Praise Allah!"

The final silenced shot made Randi jump. She wanted to see the face of the man whom they had called the Fulani, the black one, who could kill a friend as easily as an enemy. Abu Auda.

She backed away as his footsteps approached. Chills shot along her spine. She followed the sounds with her weapon trained and heard an exhalation of breath, almost a sigh of relief, as a door opened into the night about ten feet to her right. Moonlight shone in, and she stared at the terrorist who had opened it a giant black man who was dressed like an ordinary Spanish worker. He stepped outside and lifted his face toward the heavens as if saying a silent prayer of gratitude for his freedom. When he turned to grasp the door handle, light from a window caught in his eyes, and they flashed an odd brown-green.

Before the door had closed, she remembered where she had seen him: He was the white-robed bedouin who had led the attack against her at the farmhouse outside Toledo. Now she had a name for him, too: Abu Auda. She ached to open fire, but dared not. In any case, she had better uses for him.

She turned abruptly. Light had appeared on the other side of the basement again. The door above the stairs had been opened, and booted feet were pounding down into the cellar the Guardia Civil.

She forced herself to count to ten, then she pulled open the outside cellar door, glanced quickly around, stepped out into a courtyard, and closed the door. Somewhere a dog barked, while out on the street a car cruised past. She dismissed the sounds of normalcy.

It was only a matter of time until the Guardia Civil found the door and tried it. She ran toward a gate. It was the courtyard's only exit, and she hoped to find the terrorist beyond it. Just as she rushed through and into an alley, she heard the cellar door open behind her. She put on a burst of speed, disgusted with the clumsiness of the high heels. She tightened her ankles and raced determinedly onward to the street, waiting for the sounds of shouts and pounding feet behind her.

But they never came. She must have been sufficiently fast that they had not seen her. Breathing deeply, she looked around. There was no sign of Abu Auda. She slowed, hooked her MP5K up under her flared skirt again, and stepped out onto the street. For a moment, excitement coursed through her as she saw Abu Auda again. He was approaching the corner but police stationed there stopped him. Aching to capture and interrogate him herself, she watched as one of the officers examined his papers. But the inspection was only cursory: After all, a black man with Spanish papers could not be an Arab terrorist.

Randi rushed through the street's yellow pools of lamplight, but they were already letting him pass. The police turned to stare at her, their faces grim. She was next. She did not mind their questions, because she had good fake ID. What concerned her was the delay of having to deal with them.

As she watched Abu Auda turn the corner and disappear, she thought quickly. And began to swing her hips. She swayed toward them in her best imitation of the fiery Carmen, heels clicking on the street rhythmically.

As she approached, their expressions grew interested. She smiled widely, spun on her toes, and flipped the back of her skirt at them just enough for a flash of panties but not enough to show the weapon that dangled in front. They grinned and whistled in salute, and she passed by, holding her breath, heart thudding against her ribs, until one demanded her phone number. With snapping eyes, she gave him a phony one.

As the others pounded him on the back in congratulations, she sauntered off and around the same corner that Abu Auda had taken. And stopped, gazing all around, searching the lamplight and shadows of the street for him. But he was nowhere in sight. She had gone through the checkpoint faster than he had, but not fast enough. Disappointed, she moved on, looking everywhere, until finally she reached the next intersection and was forced to believe she had been too slow, or more likely he was already gone.

She hailed a taxi and told the driver to take her to the airport. Sitting back in the dim interior, she considered what she had learned: First, the black Crescent Shield leader from the Fulani tribe was named Abu Auda and he spoke Spanish and Arabic. Second, whatever the Crescent Shield planned to do were to be massive blows. Third and most worrisome was that it would happen soon. Very soon.

Chapter Nineteen

In the ultramodern Pompidou Hospital, Marty Zellerbach had been moved to a private room, where Legionnaires now guarded his door. Peter Howell pulled up a chair to Marty's bed and said cheerfully, "Well, old friend, this is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into. Can't leave you on your own for long, can I? That's right Howell here. Peter Howell, who taught you all that you know about firearms. Oh, don't try to deny it or claim weapons are vulgar and stupid. I know better." Smiling to himself, he paused, remembering.

It had been night, black night, in a large state park outside Syracuse, New York. He and Marty were trapped in his RV at the edge of the woods, surrounded by hired thugs whose gunfire had shot out all the windows. He threw Marty an assault rifle. "When I say point, just pull the trigger, my boy. Imagine the weapon's simply a joystick."

He could see Marty's expression of distaste as he examined the rifle and grumbled to himself, "There are some things I never wanted to learn." He gave a pained sigh. "Naturally, I understand this primitive machine. Child's play."

Marty was as good as his word. When Peter told him to fire, Marty nodded and squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked hard, and Marty fought to keep his balance and to keep his eyes open. His barrage shredded leaves and pine needles, ripped bark, sawed through branches, and created so much havoc that their attackers had been momentarily stopped. Which was just what Peter had needed to slip away and go for help.

Peter liked to think of himself as a peaceful man, but the truth was, he enjoyed action. To his way of thinking, he was just an old English bulldog, who relished getting his fangs into something worthwhile. He leaned over the bed's railing and told Marty, "Took to bloody combat like a duck to water, you did." It was far from true, but it was the sort of annoying statement that always got a rise out of Marty.

Peter waited, hoping Marty's eyes would snap open and he would say something insulting. When nothing happened, he turned to look back at Dr. Dubost, who was standing at the end of the bed, entering information into Marty's computer chart. Peter raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"It's a small relapse," the doctor explained in French. "They're to be expected."

"They'll diminish with time?"

"Oui. All the signs are there. Now I'm off, monsieur, to see other patients. Please continue your conversation with Dr. Zellerbach, by all means. Your ebullience is charming, and it can't but help."

Peter scowled. "Ebullience" did not strike him as an accurate description, but then the French were known to be slightly off kilter in their understanding of a lot of things. He said a polite adieu and turned back to Marty. "Alone at last," he muttered, suddenly feeling tired and very worried.

He had dozed on the jet ride from Madrid, giving him more consecutive hours of sleep than he had on many assignments, but it was the worry itself that nagged him. He had been thinking about the Crescent Shield, that it appeared to be pan-Islamic. There was no shortage of countries in the Third World that hated the United States and, to a lesser extent, Britain, claiming great damage from their driving capitalism, that their brand of globalization ignored local customs and businesses and destroyed the environment, and that their cultural arrogance crushed sensible protest. He was reminded of that old died-in-the-wool Tory, Winston Churchill, who had explained blithely and accurately that His Majesty's government did not base its practices and policies on the whims of locals. Whether the Crescent Shield were fundamentalists or not religious at all seemed less worrisome to him than the poverty that gave rise to so much terrorism.

The voice that brought him out of his uneasy reverie was not Marty's: "You couldn't wait for me?"

Automatically, Peter grabbed for his gun and turned. And relaxed. It was Randi Russell, marching into the private room, the credentials she had shown the guard at the door still in her hand.

"To where, may I ask," Peter admonished, "did you disappear?"

Randi put away her ID, and Peter met her in the middle of the room. She related what she had seen and done since they separated in Madrid. The sexy flamenco outfit she described was gone, and now she was dressed in serviceable twill slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a tailored black jacket. Her blond hair was pulled back into a stubby ponytail, and her brown eyes were worried as she told him, "I got to Barajas about ten minutes after the two of you had flown out."

"You had Jon's wind up a bit. The poor sod was anxious about you."

At that, she grinned. "Was he now?"

"Save it for Jon, my girl," Peter declared. "For me, I never doubted. You say Abu Auda was leading them?" He looked grim. "Possibly some Nigerian warlord is helping the Crescent Shield. It gets murkier with every new detail."

"It sure does," Randi agreed. "But the most vital piece of information I overheard was that whatever they're planning is going to happen soon. Two days, at the most."

"Then we'd best get a move on," Peter told her. "Check in with your station chief yet?"

"Not before I saw Marty. Is he asleep?"

"Relapsed." Peter sighed wearily. "With any luck, he'll wake again soon. When he does, I shall be here in case he can tell us anything we haven't learned."

"Is this your chair?" She headed for the armchair he had moved next to Marty's bed. "Mind if I use it?" She sat without waiting for an answer.

"Certainly," he said. "Be my guest."

She ignored the sarcasm and picked up Marty's hand. It had a natural warmth that was reassuring. She leaned forward and kissed his pudgy cheek. "He looks good," she told Peter. Then she said to Marty, "Hi, Marty. It's Randi, and I just want you to know how great you look. As if you're going to wake up any moment and say something wonderfully disagreeable to Peter."

But Marty was silent, his jaw relaxed, his high forehead uncreased, as if he had never had an unpleasant experience. But that was far from the truth. After the Hades problem had been resolved, and Marty had returned to his solitary life in his bungalow hidden behind high hedges in Washington, he might have left bullets and terrifying escapes behind, but he still had to deal with the normal activities of everyday life. For someone with Asperger's, they could be overwhelming. Which was why Marty had designed his home as a mini fortress.

When Randi had arrived to visit him the first time, he had put her through her paces, demanding she identify herself even though he could see her in his surveillance camera. But then he had unlocked the barred interior cage, hugged her, and stepped back bashfully to welcome her into his cottage, where all the windows were protected by steel bars and thick drapes. "I don't have visitors, you know," he explained in his high, slow, precise voice. "I don't like them. How about some coffee and a cookie?" His eyes made glittering contact and then skittered away again.

He made instant Yuban decaf, handed her an Oreo cookie, and took her into a computer room where a formidable Cray mainframe and other computer equipment of every possible description filled all wall space and most of the floor, while the few pieces of furniture looked like Salvation Army discards, although Marty was a multimillionaire. She knew from Jon that Marty had tested at the genius level since the age of five. He had two Ph.D.s — one in quantum physics and mathematics, of course, and the other in literature.

He had launched into a description of a new computer virus that had caused some $6 billion in damage. "This was a particularly nasty one," he explained earnestly. "It was self-self-replicating wecall them worms and it e-mailed itself to tens of millions of users and jammed e-mail systems around the globe. But the guy who started it left behind his digital fingerprint a thirty-two-digit Globally Unique ID we call them GUIDs that identified his computer." He rubbed his hands gleefully. "See, GUIDs are sometimes embedded in the computer code of files saved in Microsoft Office programs. They're hard to find, but he should've made real sure his was erased. Once I located his GUID, I tracked it to files all over the Internet until I finally pinpointed one that actually contained his name. His whole name can you believe it?in an e-mail to his girlfriend. Dumb. He lives in Cleveland, and the FBI says they have enough evidence to arrest him now." The smile on Marty's face had been radiant with triumph.

As she remembered all this, Randi leaned over Marty's hospital bed to give him another kiss, this one on the other cheek. She stroked it tenderly, hoping he would stir. "You've got to get better soon, Marty, dear," she told him at last. "You're my favorite person to eat Oreo cookies with." Her eyes felt moist. At last she stood up. "Take good care of him, Peter."

"I will."

She headed toward the door. "I'm off to check in with my station chief and find out what he can tell me about Mauritania and the DNA computer hunt. Then it's Brussels. In case Jon does call here, remind him I'll look for a message at the Caf Egmont."

He smiled. "A message drop, just like the old days when tradecraft really mattered. Damn me, but it feels good."

"You're a dinosaur, Peter."

"That I am," he agreed cheerfully, "that I am." And more soberly, "Off with you. I'd say there appears to be considerable urgency, and your country's the most likely target."

Before Randi was out the door, Peter was back in his chair beside the silent Marty, talking and joshing, the quirkiness of their friendship in every light, bantering word.

Captain Darius Bonnard sat in the fishermen's caf on the rustic waterfront, eating a plate of langosta a la parrilla and gazing across the flat, spare landscape of the last and smallest of the main Balearic Islands toward the port of La Savina. Two of the islands in the chain Mallorca and Ibiza were synonymous with tourism and had once been the main vacation destination of well-to-do Britishers, while this one, La Isla de Formentera, had remained a little-known, underdeveloped, almost perfectly flat Mediterranean paradise. Captain Bonnard's ostensible mission here was to bring back for his general's table a generous supply of the famous local mayonnaise, first created in Mao, the picturesque capital of the fourth island, Menorca.

He had finished his meal of lobster and the same ubiquitous mayonnaise and was sipping a glass of light local white wine, when the real reason for his trip sat down across the table.

Mauritania's small face and blue eyes shone with triumph. "The test was a complete success," he enthused in French. "The smug Americans never knew what hit them, as they say in their barbaric language. We're exactly on schedule."

"No problems?"

"There is a problem with the DNA replicator that Chambord tells me needs to be corrected. Unfortunate, but not disastrous."

Bonnard smiled and raised his glass. "Sant!" he toasted. "Cheers! Excellent news. And you? How goes your end?"

Mauritania frowned, and his gaze bore into Bonnard. "At the moment, my largest concern is you. If exploding the jet that was carrying General Moore was your work, as I think it was, it was a blunder."

"It was necessary." Bonnard drained his wineglass. "My general, whose stupid nationalistic convictions enable me to work so well with you, has the unfortunate habit of exaggerating his position in order to impress doubters. This time he alarmed Sir Arnold Moore. We don't need a suspicious British general alerting his government, which in turn is guaranteed to warn the Americans as well. Then both would be up in arms about a nonexistent danger that might easily be tracked back to us."

"His sudden death will do precisely that."

"Relax, my revolutionary friend. Had Sir Arnold reached Britain, he would've revealed the meeting on the Charles de Gaulle and what my general suggested. That would've been a serious problem. But now the prime minister knows only that one of his generals was flying to London to speak to him on a delicate matter and has now disappeared. He and his staff will speculate about it. Was it a private matter? A public matter? All of this will give us time, since their vaunted MI6 will have to dig around until it finds out what and why. They'll probably never succeed. But if they do, enough days will have passed that by then" Bonnard shrugged" we won't care, will we?"

Mauritania thought for a time and smiled. "Perhaps you do know what you're doing, Captain. When you first approached me to join you, I wasn't convinced of that."

"Then why did you agree to the plan?"

"Because you had the money. Because the plan was good, and our purpose the same. So we will smite the enemy together. But I still fear your action against the English general will draw attention."

"If we didn't have the full attention of Europe and the Americans before, your tests have assured we do now."

Mauritania admitted grudgingly, "Perhaps. When will you come to us? We may want you soon, particularly if Chambord's back needs more stiffening."

"When it's safe. When I won't be missed."

Mauritania stood. "Very well. Two days, no more."

"I'll be there long before. Count on it."

Mauritania walked from the caf to his bicycle, parked near the water. Out on the Mediterranean, white sails were unfurled against the blue sea. Above him, seagulls rode the salty air. A scattering of cafs, bars, and gift shops dotted the open area, with the Spanish flag whipping smartly overhead. As he pedaled away from the annoyingly Western scene, his cell phone rang. It was Abu Auda.

Mauritania asked, "You were successful in Madrid?"

"We weren't," Abu Auda told him, his voice angry and frustrated. He did not tolerate failure in anyone, including himself. "We lost many men. They are clever, those three, and the police arrived so quickly that we were unable to finish our mission. I was forced to eliminate four of our own." He described the confrontation in the Madrid basement.

Mauritania muttered an Arabic oath he knew would shock the puritanical desert warrior, but he did not care.

"It was not entirely a loss," Abu Auda said, his mind more on his chagrin at having failed than on Mauritania's flouting of their religion. "We slowed and separated them."

"Where did they go, Abu Auda?"

"There was no way to find out."

Mauritania's voice rose. "Do you feel safe with them free to plot against us?"

"We were unable to hunt them because of the police," Abu Auda said, controlling his temper. "I was fortunate to escape at all."

Mauritania swore again and heard Abu Auda give a disapproving grunt. He hung up and muttered in English that he did not give a tinker's damn about Abu Auda's religious sensibilities, which were mostly humbug anyway and never prevented Abu Auda from being as devious as a snake striking its own tail when it suited him. What mattered was that the mysterious Smith, the old Englishman from the western Iraqi desert, and the shameless CIA woman were still out there.

The frumpy brunette who emerged from the entrance to the Concorde metro stop onto the rue de Rivoli bore a striking resemblance to the woman who had followed Jon Smith from the Pasteur Institute except that this woman wore a pastel pantsuit common to many tourists and walked with the hurrying steps of most Americans. She crossed the rue Royale into the avenue Gabriel, passed the Hotel Grillon, and turned onto the grounds of the American embassy. Once inside, she acted distraught as she described an emergency at home in North Platte, Nebraska. She had to get home, but her passport had been stolen.

She was sympathetically referred to a room on the second floor, and she almost ran up the stairs. Inside the room, a short, heavy man in an impeccable dark blue pin-stripe suit was waiting at a conference table.

"Hello, Aaron," Randi said as she sat down at the table, facing him.

Aaron Isaacs, CIA station chief in Paris, said, "You've been out of touch almost forty-eight hours. Where's Mauritania?"

"Gone." Randi told him all that had happened in Toledo and Madrid.

"You uncovered all that? Chambord alive, the DNA computer in the hands of some group calling itself the Crescent Shield? So why did the DCI have to get it from the White House and army intelligence?"

"Because I didn't uncover all that. At least not without help. Jon Smith and Peter Howell were there, too."

"MI6? The DCI's going to go apoplectic."

"Sorry about that. Most of it came from Smith. He got the name of the group, he saw Chambord and his daughter alive. Even talked to them. Chambord told him the Crescent Shield had the computer. All I did was find out Mauritania was bossing the terrorists."

"Who the hell's this Smith?"

"Remember the one I worked with on the Hades virus?"

"That guy? I thought he was an army doctor."

"He is. He's also a cell and microbiology researcher at USAMRIID, a combat doctor in the field, and a lieutenant colonel. The army grabbed him to work on this because of his field experience and his knowledge of DNA computer research."

"You believe all that?"

"Sometimes. It's not important. What can you give me on Mauritania and the DNA computer hunt I don't have?"

"You say the last you saw Mauritania was heading south from Toledo?"

"Yes."

"You know he's from Africa. Most of his strikes with Al Qaeda and other groups have been launched from Africa or Spain. Most of the men he's lost over the years in one group or another have been arrested in Spain. With him and his group heading south, North Africa seems a logical destination, especially after a rumor Langley picked up that says Mauritania may be married to at least one Algerian woman and could have a home in Algiers."

"Now we're getting someplace. Names? Places?"

"Not yet. Our assets are trawling for specifics. With luck, we'll know something soon."

Randi nodded. "How about a terrorist named Abu Auda? A giant Fulani, older, maybe late fifties? Odd green-brown eyes?"

Isaacs frowned. "Never heard the name. I'll have Langley run it." He picked up a phone that stood on the table near him. "Cassie? Send this through to Langley top priority." He gave her the data on Abu Auda and hung up. "Want to know what we've come up with in the Pasteur bombing?"

"Something new? Damn, Aaron, spit it out."

Isaacs gave a grim smile. "We got a clandestine call from a Mossad agent here in Paris, and maybe it's pure gold. It seems there's a Filipino postdoctoral researcher at the Pasteur, whose cousin tried to plant a bomb in the Mossad's Tel Aviv HQ. The guy was from Mindanao, where the Abu Sayaaf group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was an ally of the Bin Laden faction and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The researcher has no known terrorist connections and has been away from Mindanao a long time."

"Then what made Mossad alert you to the family relationship?"

"The researcher called in sick to the Pasteur that night. He was supposed to be there, according to his boss, who was badly injured in the blast. That was because he was needed for some important experiment they were conducting."

"Where's their lab, if the boss was so badly hurt?"

"On the floor below Chambord's laboratory. Everyone in that lab was killed or maimed."

"Mossad thinks he was the inside man?"

"There's no evidence, but I passed it on to Langley, and they think it's a hot lead. The Pasteur's security isn't state-of-the-art, but it's good enough to keep out bombers, unless the bomber has some kind of internal contact. Particularly since my people believe the terrorists took not only a resisting Chambord, but the entire experimental setup for his DNA computer. And they did it all just minutes before the bomb went off."

"What about the researcher's supposed illness?"

"On the surface, legitimate. He consulted a doctor for chest pains and was advised to stay home a few days. Of course, chest pains and even heart irregularities can be chemically produced."

"They can, and relatively easily. Okay, where is this guy? Does he have a name?"

"Dr. Akbar Suleiman. As I said, he's postdoc and lives in Paris. We asked the Paris police to check, and they say he's on leave from the Pasteur until his lab can be rebuilt. Mossad says he's still in the city. I have his address."

Randi took the sheet of paper and stood up. "Tell Langley I'm going to be working on Mauritania and the DNA computer with Jon Smith and Peter Howell. Tell them I want authorization to commandeer any asset we have, anywhere."

Aaron nodded. "Done." The phone rang. Aaron listened. Then, "Thanks, Cassie." He hung up and shrugged. "Nothing on an Abu Auda at all. Must keep a really low profile."

Randi left, heading for De Gaulle again, then Brussels and Jon. If this Dr. Akbar Suleiman was part of the Crescent Shield, and they could find him, maybe he would lead them to Mauritania. She doubted there would be a third chance. Not in time.

Chapter Twenty

At the airport thirteen kilometers outside Brussels in Zaventem, Jon rented another Renault and picked up the supplies Fred Klein had arranged to be waiting for him. Among them was a uniform, which he put on in preparation for his next destination. Carrying a small overnight bag in which were packed civilian clothes and a 9mm Walther, he drove onto the RO heading west. It was raining steadily, a gray, dismal downpour. Once past Brussels, he left the trunk road and took smaller highways and back roads, watching behind to be certain he was not being tailed.

The countryside was green, flat, and bleak through the sheets of early May rain. Well-tended farms stretched into the distance to a horizon flatter than the great prairie of the American West or the steppes of Russia. In this low-lying land, the various roads crossed many small rivers and canals. Traffic was relatively heavy as he drove in the general direction of the French border not as thick as in Los Angeles or London at rush hour, but far more than the wide-open interstates of Montana or Wyoming.

From time to time he stopped at a country inn or simply pulled off into a grove of trees to search the sky for helicopters or light aircraft that might be tracking him. When he was satisfied no one followed, he drove on using the same tactics until at last he reached the outskirts of Mons, fifty-five kilometers southwest of Brussels. Wars and soldiers had been part of the history of Mons, or "Bergen" in Flemish, for more than two thousand years, since the days Roman legions first established a fortified camp here on their empire's northern border. Here, too, the generals of Louis XIV engaged in one of their long series of bloody battles against their perpetual nemesis, John Churchill, duke of Maryborough. Mons had also been a bruising battlefield for the armies of the French Revolution, as well as for the heavily outnumbered British Expeditionary Force, which fought its first major engagement of World War I here.

All in all, this was a fitting location for the Supreme Headquarters of Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE)the military arm of NATO, and the main office of the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, the SACEUR himself, General Carlos Henze, U.S.A. Located a few kilometers outside the historic town, the entrance to the parklike campus was a simple kiosk standing before an array of flagpoles flying the banners of all the NATO member nations, plus the United Nations. In the background was a flat-roofed, two-story pale brown building, and behind that rose more unprepossessing buildings.

When Smith presented his credentials at the kiosk, he stated his business as reporting to the chief medical officer. Because of the heightened security of the twenty-first century, one of the military policemen on duty called the chief medical officer's office to confirm the appointment, while another scrutinized Jon, his army uniform, and especially his photo ID and army medical credentials.

When the guards were satisfied, Smith drove onto the right arm of the V-shaped road, parked in the designated lot, and walked to the main entrance, where a steel-beamed marquee like those on a no-frills hotel announced proudly: supreme headquarters allied powers Europe. Above that was SHAPE'S green-and-gold official shield. Inside, the receptionist directed him to the second floor, where Master Sergeant Matthias met him with a sharp salute. Dressed in full uniform, with rows of stripes and battle ribbons, Matthias escorted him through endless corridors to General Carlos Henze's office.

The wiry general was as blunt as ever: "Is all this damned cloak-and-dagger necessary, Colonel?"

Smith saluted and said, "Don't look at me, sir. It's not my idea." Henze glared, returned the salute, and grumbled, "Civilians." He waved Smith to a leather chair that faced his desk. "The president's people filled me in. Here's the data they sent over." He pushed file folders toward him, holding back one file. "My staff couldn't locate damn all about any Crescent Shield. Even the CIA knew zip. Looks like you've found a brand-new gang of Arab thugs, Colonel. I had my doubts, but maybe you know what you're doing. Now what?"

"Not Arabs alone, sir. Militants from all parts of the Muslim world: Arabs from many countries, Afghans, a Fulani from northern Nigeria who knows who else. Their leader appears to have been originally from Mauritania. Islam is a world of many nations and ethnic groups, and I'm not even certain they're all Muslims."

As the rail-thin general listened, the four stars on his uniform seemed to glint belligerently as if to defy the terrorists, the bleak day outside his rain-swept windows, and the fruit salad climbing from his pocket nearly to his shoulder. His gaze was intense, as if he were seeing every country, every ethnic group, analyzing every implication. This was no longer a potential threat. It was real. So real and worrisome that Henze rotated his chair around to face his window in his usual back-turned act. "Indonesia? Malaysia?" the general's voice rumbled. "Turkey?"

"Not so far. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were recruits from all of them, and we have indications some of the Central Asian tribes and countries could be involved as well."

Henze whipped his chair back around to stare at Smith. "Indications?"

"An MI6 man I know identified an unusual auditory night signal as being from Central Asia, similar to the night signals of our woodland Indians."

"The old Soviet Republics? Tajiks? Uzbeks? Kirghiz and Kazak?"

Jon nodded, and Henze stroked his nose, deep in thought. He picked up a thinner file from his desk and tossed it across the desk. "The president wanted you to have this, too. It's the complete official NATO dossier on Captain Darius Bonnard, plus what the Oval Office dug up from the French. You're suspicious of General La Porte's top aide? A trusted man who works right here? Practically in my lap?"

"I'm suspicious of everyone, General."

"Even me?"

Remembering his earlier suspicions about the "orderly's" visit to Henze's pension in Paris, Jon's smile was thin. "Not so far."

"But I'm not above suspicion?"

Jon hesitated, then decided to be as blunt as the general. "No, sir."

"God in heaven," Henze breathed. He leaned back and studied Jon, his fierce focus reminding Jon of a laser beam. "Yesterday when you and I talked, we knew zip. Now we know the doohickey is for real, the big Kahuna who created it is alive and kicking, and the gang that has them and the daughter is both multinational and multiethnic. So answer what I asked earlier: Now what?"

"Now we find them."

"How?"

"I don't know yet."

"You don't know yet?" Henze stared at Smith. "When the hell will you know?"

"When I do."

Henze's mouth opened, his bony face turned almost purple. "Is that supposed to satisfy me?"

"It's that kind of war, General. I wish I could give you more, a lot more. I have ideas, leads, hunches, but nothing I can honestly say will do the job, much less how and when."

The general continued to stare at Smith, but his high color receded. "I don't like this kind of war. I don't like it one damn all."

"Neither do I. But it's the way it is right now."

Henze nodded to himself, his focus turned inward. He was the supreme commander of NATO in Europe, with all of the highly mechanized, cyber-smart armies of the member nations at his disposal. Yet he was feeling powerless in the face of this new enemy little known, without territory or tribe, with hardly a way of life to protect. Only an apocalyptic vision and impossible-to-satisfy grievances.

He rubbed his eyes, looking tired. "I went through one kind of 'new' war, Colonel Smith, and it damn near destroyed me. After Vietnam, I'm not sure I can handle another 'new' one. Maybe it's just as well. Time for a new kind of commander."

"We'll get it done," Jon said.

Henze nodded. "We have to win." Looking drained, he indicated Jon should pick up the file folders.

Jon took them, saluted, and left. In the corridor, he paused and decided to take the files to Brussels, where he was to meet Randi. He could study them there. As he walked off, he heard his name called. He turned to see General the Count Roland la Porte striding toward him with a broad smile.

"Bonjour, General La Porte."

Doors seemed to rattle on their hinges as the massive general cruised past. "Ah, Colonel Smith. The man who's given us all the great shock. We must speak at once. Come, my office is near. We will have coffee, non?"

Jon agreed they would have coffee, and he followed La Porte into his office. The general sat in a large red leather armchair in the style of a British club chair. It looked as if it were the only piece of furniture besides the desk chair that would not crumble under his oversized body. He assigned Jon another delicate occasional chair from the Louis Quinze period. Soon a nervous young French lieutenant served coffee.

"So, our Emile is alive after all, which is magnifique, but the kidnappers have him, which is not so magnifique. You could not be mistaken, Colonel?"

"Afraid not."

La Porte nodded, scowling. "Then we've been duped. The remains found in the bombed Pasteur building were not there by accident, nor the fingerprints and DNA profile in his Sret file, and the Basques were only a front, a charade to hide the real terrorists. Is that so?"

"Yes," Jon acknowledged. "The actual perpetrators call themselves the Crescent Shield. A multiethnic, multinational Muslim extremist group led by a man who calls himself M. Mauritania."

The general gulped angrily at his coffee. "The information I was given, and then gave to you, appears to have misled you on many counts. I apologize for this."

"Actually, it was following the trail of the Basques that revealed most of what we know now, so in the end you turned out to be of great help, General."

"Merci. I take comfort in that outcome."

Jon put down his cup. "May I ask where your aide, Captain Bonnard, is?"

"Darius? I sent him on a mission to the South of France."

Not far from Spain. "Where exactly, General?"

La Porte stared at Jon, frowned. "Our naval base at Toulon and then on to Menorca for an errand. Why? What are these questions about Darius?"

"How well do you know Captain Bonnard?"

"Well?" La Porte was astonished. "You suspect Darius of? No, no, that's impossible. I can't think such a treason."

"He gave you the information you gave me."

"Impossible." The general glared in anger. "How well do I know Darius? As a father knows his son. He's been with me six years. He has a spotless record with many decorations and commendations for courage and daring from before the first time we were together when he was a platoon commander for me in the Fourth Dragoons in the Iraq War. Earlier, he was a poilu in the Second Foreign Legion Infantry Regiment operating in North Africa at the request of nations that were our former colonies and still called on us from time to time for aid. He was commissioned from the ranks. How can you suspect such an honored man?"

"An enlisted man in the Legion? He's not French?"

"Of course he's French!" La Porte snapped. His broad face seemed to freeze, and a look of discomfort took hold on it, squeezing his features. "It's true his father was German. Darius was German-born, but his mother was French, and he took her name when he was commissioned."

"What do you know of his private life?"

"Everything. He's married to a fine young woman from a good family with many years of service to France. He's a student of our history, as am I."

La Porte swept his arm in a wide circle to encompass the entire office, and Jon saw that the walls were covered with paintings, photographs, drawings, maps, all of great moments in French history. There was one exception, a photograph of the painting of the red-stone castle Jon had seen first in the general's Paris mansion.

But the general was still talking. "History is more than the story of a nation, a people. Real history chronicles a country's soul, so that to not know the history is to not know the nation or the people. If we do not know the past, Colonel, we are doomed to repeat it, non? How can a man devoted to his country's history betray it? Impossible."

Jon listened with a growing sense that La Porte was talking too much, defending Bonnard too hard, as if to convince himself. Was the general realizing deep down that what he saw as impossible might just be possible? There was more than a little doubt in the general's final few words. "No, I cannot believe it. Not Darius."

But Jon could, and as he left the office, he glanced back at the general in his great, thronelike chair. La Porte was brooding, and there was dread in his unfocused gaze.

Peter Howell dozed on the narrow cot he had insisted the hospital move into Marty's private room, when a bee or wasp or some kind of annoying flying stinger buzzed his ear. He slapped hard and awakened to the pain in his head where he had clouted himself and the harsh, insistent ringing of the room telephone on the stand next to his pillow.

Across the room, Marty stirred, mumbling.

Peter glanced at him and grabbed the phone. "Howell."

"Sleeping were we, Peter?"

"An unfortunate necessity at intervals even for a field operative, no matter how inconvenient for you nine-to-five civil servants who get to spend every night in your own bloody beds, or your mistress's."

In London, Sir Gareth Southgate chuckled. But there was no real amusement in the sound, for it had been his unenviable task, as the head of MI6, to manage Peter Howell long past when he should have seen the maverick's backside. But nothing about the retired agent was normal, including his pleasure in being troublesome. The fact was, Peter Howell was a brilliant operative, which made him useful in emergencies. Therefore, jocularity and a very rigid lip were the methods Southgate had chosen to deal with him.

But now Southgate's chuckle died in his throat. "How is Dr. Zellerbach, Peter?"

"Unchanged. What the devil do you want?"

Southgate kept his voice light, but added an overtone of gravity: "To give you some disturbing information, and to ask your oh-so-insightful opinion on the matter."

In the hospital room, Marty stirred again. He appeared restless. Peter looked at him hopefully. When Marty seemed to fall back into slumber, Peter returned his attention to the conversation with Southgate. Once he knew he had gotten under any of the bosses' skins, he became quite civil. Noblesse oblige. "I am, as we say in California, all ears."

"How nice of you," Southgate commented. "This will be ultrasecret. PM's eyes only. In fact, I'm making this call using a brand-new scrambler and encryption code, to make bloody damn sure the terrorists haven't had a chance to break through it yet. And I'll never use it again, not until we get that monstrous DNA computer under our control. Do you read me clearly, Peter?"

Peter growled, "Then you'd best not tell me, old boy."

Southgate's testmess rose closer to the surface. "I beg your pardon?"

"The rules haven't changed. What I do on an assignment is my decision. Should I, in my judgment, need to share the information to achieve the goal, then I will. And you may tell the PM that."

Sir Gareth's voice rose. "Do you enjoy being an arrogant bastard, Peter?"

"Immensely. Now tell me what you want me to know or push off, right?" Peter figured it was only logical that officials a great deal higher up than the head of MI6 had invited him to this party, which meant Southgate was powerless to fire him. He smiled as he envisioned South-gate's frustration.

Southgate's voice was brittle: "General Sir Arnold Moore and his pilot are missing and presumed dead on a flight from Gibraltar to London. He was flying home to present a report of utmost urgency to the PM. All he would tell the PM over even the most secure electronic connection was that it involved the and I quote 'recent electronic disruptions in America.' For that reason, I have been instructed to relay the information on to you."

Peter was instantly sobered. "Did General Moore give any hint of how or where he had encountered what he wanted to tell the PM?"

"None." Southgate, too, abandoned the feud. "We've checked every source we have, and what we know is that the general was supposed to be at his country estate in Kent. Instead, he flew to Gibraltar from London with his own pilot. After that, he and the pilot took a helicopter and returned some six hours later. During those six hours, he was out of contact."

"Gibraltar station doesn't know where he flew?"

"No one does. His pilot, of course, vanished with him."

Peter digested this news. "All right, I need to remain here until I can question Dr. Zellerbach. Meanwhile, put everyone you can on finding out where Moore went. Once I've spoken to Zellerbach, I'll head south and root around. A helicopter has a limited flight range, so we should be able to narrow the general's destinations."

"Very well. I hold on." Southgate's voice faded as he turned to speak with someone else. The two voices continued for some seconds before the chief of MI6 resumed his conversation with Peter: "We've just received a report that debris from Moore's Tornado have been found at sea off Lisbon. The fuselage showed signs of an explosion. I imagine we can consider both him and the pilot dead."

Peter agreed. "An accident seems unlikely, considering everything. Keep your people digging, and I'll be in touch."

Southgate bit off a remark that Howell was also one of his people, subject to orders. But it was not true. Inwardly, he sighed. "Very good. And, Peter? Try to tell as few people as possible, eh?"

Peter hung up. Pompous ass. He thanked his stars he had always managed to remain out of a position of authority. All it did was go to a perfectly decent man's brain and impede oxygen, progress, and results. On second thought, decent men rarely sought or received authority. You had to be a solemn fool before you wanted that sort of agony.

"My goodness." A shaky voice was speaking behind him: "Peter Howell? Is that you, Peter?"

Peter leaped from his cot and ran to Marty's bedside.

Marty blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Am I then dead? Surely I must be. Yes, I must be in hell." He gazed worriedly into Peter's face. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be seeing Lucifer. I should've known. Where else would I meet that insufferable Englishman but in hell?"

"That's more like it." Peter smiled broadly. "Hello, Marty, you silly fellow. You gave us quite a turn."

Marty peered worriedly around his hospital room. "It looks pleasant enough, but I'm not tricked. It's an illusion." He cringed. "I see flames behind these innocent walls. Orange, yellow, red. Boiling fire from the hubs of hell! Blinding! Don't think you can hold Marty Zellerbach!" He threw back his sheets, and Peter grabbed his shoulders.

As he struggled to hold Marty in bed, Peter roared, "Guard! Get the nurse! Get the damn doctor! Get somebody!"

The door snapped open, and the guard looked in and saw what was happening. "Be right back."

Marty pressed into Peter's hands, not struggling now so much as simply using the full weight of his stout body to push determinedly toward freedom. "Arrogant Lucifer! I'll be out of your clutches before you can blink. Reality and illusion. Zounds, who do you think you're dealing with? Oh, it'll be fun to match wits with the archfiend. There's no way you can win. I'll fly from here on the wings of a red-tailed hawk. No way no… "

"Shhh, boy," Peter said, trying to calm him. "I'm not Lucifer. Not really. Remember old Peter? We had some good times, we did."

But Marty continued to rave, caught in the grip of the extreme manic stage of his Asperger's Syndrome. The nurse ran in, followed by Dr. Dubost. While she and Peter held Marty down, the doctor injected him with an aqueous solution of Mideral, the drug that controlled his manic stage.

"I must fly away Satan can't outwit me! Not me! I will. "

While Peter and the nurse continued to restrain Marty, the doctor nodded approval. "Try to keep him as quiet as possible. He's been in the coma a long time, and we don't want any relapses. The Mideral will take effect soon."

Peter talked quietly as Marty continued to rant, building his schemes and castles in the sky, all centered on the delusion that he was in Pluto's underworld and had to outwit the devil himself. Soon he grew less physical and no longer tried to escape, and eventually his eyes turned dull, his lids drooped, and he began to nod.

The nurse smiled at Peter and stepped back. "You're a good friend to him, Mr. Howell. A lot of people would've run screaming from the room."

Peter frowned. "That so? Don't have much backbone, do they?"

"Or heart." She patted him on the shoulder and left.

For the first time, Peter regretted not having electronic communications or being able to bounce cell calls off a satellite. He wanted to let Jon and Randi know about Marty, while at the same time, he should call his contacts in the South of France, along the Costa Brava into Spain, and all the places a helicopter from Gibraltar could have flown to see what he could learn about General Moore's last few hours. But they were best reachable by their cell phones.

Frustrated, he sat down, sighed, and let his head fall forward into his hands. That was when he heard light steps behind him. Soft, evasive footsteps, and he had not even heard the door open.

"Randi?" As he started to turn, he reached for the Browning Hi-Power 9mm in his belt. That tread was not Randi's. And he was too late. Before the weapon was in his hand, the cold metal of the intruder's gun muzzle pressed firmly into the back of his head. He froze. Whoever it was, was skilled. Frighteningly adept, and not alone.

Chapter Twenty-one

Smith closed the cover of the last file folder, ordered a second Chimay ale, and sat back. He had dropped a note at the Caf Egmont, telling Randi to meet him at the caf Le Cerf Agile, where he was seated at a sidewalk table. It was his favorite caf in the rue St-Catherine area of the lower city, not far from the bourse and what had once been the banks of the river Senne when this part of Brussels was a port to hundreds of fishing vessels. As this was still a fish-market area, seafood remained the order of the day in bistros here, even though the river had long ago been boxed inside a man-made channel and bricked over to become the boulevard Anspach.

But the fish, the hidden river, and the food were far from Smith's mind as he took a long draft of his dark ale and looked around. No other patrons were sitting outside, since dark clouds still rolled occasionally across the sky. But the rain had stopped an hour ago, and when Smith had asked, the matre d' had wiped off this table and the two accompanying chairs. The other patrons had decided to take no chances that the heavens would open again in another deluge, which was fine with Jon.

He liked being out here alone, out of range of prying eyes and ears. He had changed out of his uniform after he left SHAPE and now looked like any tourist in his tan cotton slacks, open-necked tartan shirt, dark-blue sports jacket, and athletic shoes. The shoes were important, in case he had to run. The jacket was important, to hide his pistol. And the black trench coat he had slung over the back of his chair was important, because it helped him to blend with the night.

But now, as the sun fought the clouds for dominance of the afternoon sky, Jon was thinking about what he had learned at NATO. The file on Captain Darius Bonnard was revealing. Either La Porte did not know or he was protecting Bonnard by withholding the fact that Bonnard's current wife — the French woman that La Porte had so admired was not Bonnard's first: While serving in the legion, he had married an Algerian woman. Whether he had converted to Islam was unknown. However, even after being commissioned, he took all his leave time in Algiers, where the wife and her family lived. There was no information about why Bonnard had divorced her. Since there were no divorce documents in the file either, Jon was suspicious. Like sleeper spies or moles, terrorists often established new identities in target countries while maintaining entirely different lives elsewhere.

So Darius Bonnard, favored aide to NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, was a German serving in the French army, once married to an Algerian woman, now away somewhere in the South of France — not all that far from Toledo.

Still pondering, Jon reached for his ale and gazed up just in time to see Randi paying off a taxi a half block away from the caf. He sat back, smiling, holding his glass and admiring the view. She was dressed conservatively in dark slacks and a fitted jacket, her hair pulled back casually in a ponytail. With her easy movements and slender figure, for a moment she looked like a teenager. She hurried toward him, vigorous and beautiful, and he realized he no longer thought of Sophia every time he saw her. It gave him an odd feeling.

She reached the table. "You look as if you've seen a ghost. Worried about me? Sweet, but completely unnecessary."

"Where the hell were you?" he managed to growl through his smile.

She sat and peered around for a waiter. "I'll give you a full report in a minute. I've just come from Paris. I thought you'd like to know that I stopped to see Marty"

He sat up straighter. "How is he?"

"He was asleep again and still hadn't told Peter a thing." As she filled him in about the relapses, she watched worry pinch his high-planed face and darken his navy-blue eyes. Jon could look like a predatory monster when things were going badly, especially if it was in the middle of action, but right now he was a man whose main concern was his friend. With his tousled dark hair and worry-wrinkled brow and the scratches on his face from when they were chased in Madrid, she found him almost endearing.

"It's all so much harder now that we can't use our cell phones," Jon grumbled. "Otherwise, Peter would've called to tell me all this himself."

"Everything's a lot harder without our cell phones and modems." She shot him a look of warning. The waiter was coming to their table. They stopped their conversation as she ordered a Chimay, too, but the Grand Reserve. As soon as the waiter was out of earshot, she asked, "Have you learned anything?"

"A few things." Jon described the file information about Darius Bonnard and his meeting with General La Porte. "La Porte might not know about the Algerian connection, or he could be covering for Bonnard out of loyalty. What did you get?"

"Maybe what we need." She was excited as she told him what she had learned from Aaron Isaacs, finishing with Dr. Akbar Suleiman's illness.

"You're right. This is promising. Where is the guy?"

"He's postdoc and lives in Paris. Mossad says he's still in the city. I have his address."

"What are we waiting for?"

Randi smiled grimly. "For me to finish my ale."

From time to time, a cool breeze blew through the large, whitewashed room of the sprawling Mediterranean villa, making the gauzy curtains billow. The villa had been designed to take advantage of even the lightest wind. Currents of air drifted continuously through the open arches that separated the rooms from the hallway at the isolated coastal estate.

Deep inside an alcove, Dr. Emile Chambord worked over the ultrathin tubing and connections between his keyboard and the conglomeration of gel packs in their tray, feeder machine, flexible metal plate, monitor, and electronic printer that Mauritania and his men had carefully transported all the way here from his lab at the Pasteur. Chambord liked the alcove because it was sheltered from the constant breeze. Both temperature control and a complete lack of vibration were vital to the operation of his delicate prototype DNA computer.

Chambord was concentrating. At his fingertips was his life's work his secret molecular computer. While he made adjustments, he thought about the future, both electronic and political. He believed that this rudimentary DNA computer was the beginning of changes most people were not educated enough to imagine, much less appreciate. Controlling molecules with the deftness and precision that physicists used to control electrons would revolutionize the world, ultimately leading to the subatomic realm, where matter behaved very differently from what people saw with their eyes or heard with their ears or touched with their skin.

Electrons and atoms did not act with the straightforwardness of the billiard balls in Newton's classic physics. Instead, they showed characteristics closer to fuzzy wavelike entities. At the atomic level, waves could behave like particles, while particles had waves associated with them. An electron could travel many different routes simultaneously, as if it were really a spread-out phenomenon like a wave. Similarly, an atomic computer would be able to calculate along many different paths simultaneously, too. Perhaps even among different dimensions. The fundamental assumptions of our world would be forever proved wrong.

At its most basic, today's computer was simply a set of wires arranged in one direction, a layer of switches, and a second set of wires aligned in the opposite direction. The wires and switches were configured to fabricate logic gates but the kinds of wires and switches made all the difference. Chambord had succeeded in using DNA molecules to function as AND and OR logic gates, the basic computational language of electronic computers. In earlier experimental DNA machines created by other scientists, one of the insurmountable problems had been that the rotaxane molecules, which was what they used for gates, could be set only once, making them suitable for read-only memory, not random-access memory, which required constant switching.

That had been the so-called impossible niche that Chambord had filled: He had created a different molecule with the properties that would make a DNA computer work. The molecule was synthetic, and he called it Francane, in honor of France.

As Chambord turned from his apparatus to make mathematical calculations in his notebook, Thérèse appeared in the archway. "Why do you help them?" Her eyes were angry but she controlled her voice as she studied her father. He looked very tired as he bent over his calculations.

He sighed, looked up, and turned. "What else can I do?"

Her full lips were pale, all the dynamic red lipstick worn off days ago. Unbrushed and uncombed, her black hair no longer hung in a satin sheet. She still wore the slim white evening suit, but now it was torn and dirty. The high-necked, off-white silk blouse was flecked with blood and what looked like grease, and the high-heeled, ivory pumps were gone. Her shoes were bedouin slippers. They were her one concession; she had refused to accept even a change of clothes from her captors.

"You could say no," she told him tiredly. "None of them can operate your molecular computer. They'd be helpless."

"And I'd be dead. More important, so would you."

"They'll kill us anyway."

"No! They've promised."

Thérèse heard the desperation, the grasping at straws. "Promised?" She laughed. "The promise of terrorists, kidnappers, murderers?"

Chambord closed his mouth, refused to answer. He returned to his work, checking the connections of his computer.

"They're going to do something terrible," she said. "People will die. You know that."

"I don't know that at all."

She stared at his profile. "You've made a deal. For me. That's it, isn't it? Your soul in exchange for my life."

"I've made no deal." Still her father did not look up again.

She continued to stare, trying to fathom what he must be feeling, thinking. What he was going through. "But that's what you'll do. You'll make them let me go before you help them accomplish whatever it is they want."

Chambord was silent. Then he said quietly, "I won't let them murder you."

"Isn't that my choice?"

Now her father whirled in his chair. "No! It's my choice."

There were soft footsteps behind Thérèse. She flinched as Mauritania arrived at the archway, gazing from her to her father and back again. Armed and glowering, Abu Auda stood sentry behind.

Mauritania was solemn. "You are wrong, Mademoiselle Chambord. When our mission is accomplished, I have no further need of your father, and we will announce our triumph to the world so the Great Satan can know who brings his downfall. There will be no reason to care what you or your father can tell. No one is going to die, unless they refuse to help us complete the mission."

Thérèse sneered. "Perhaps you can fool him, but not me. I know lies when I hear them."

"It pains me that you do not trust us, but I have no time to persuade you." Mauritania looked at Chambord. "How much longer before you are again ready?"

"I told you I needed two days."

Mauritania's small eyes narrowed. "They are nearly passed." He had not raised his voice since he arrived, but that did not dispel the menace that burned from his gaze.

The towering Tour Montparnasse with its complement of other tall, upscale buildings along the boulevard Montparnasse receded as Smith, Randi, and Hakim Gatta, a terrified lab assistant from L'Institut Pasteur, walked deeper into the back streets of Paris, where the new bohemians worked and lived among the spirits of the old. The sun had set, and the last glowing embers of the day gave the sky a somber gray-and-yellow cast. Black shadows stretched across overgrown spring gardens and cobbled streets, and the scents of liquor, marijuana, and oil paints mingled in the air.

At last the nervous little bottle-washer, Hakim, muttered in French, "This is the street. Can I leave now?" He was a little over five feet tall with a mass of curly black hair, soft brown skin, and furtive black eyes. He lived above Dr. Akbar Suleiman.

"Not yet," Randi told him. She pulled him back into the shadows, where Jon followed in three quick steps. "Which building is it?"

"N-number fifteen."

Jon said, "Which apartment?"

"Th-third floor. In back. You promised you'd pay me, and I could go."

"The alley is the only other way out?"

Hakim nodded eagerly. "The front entrance, or the alley. There's no other way."

Jon told Randi, "You take the alley, I'll go in."

"Who put you in charge?"

Hakim started to back away. She grabbed his collar and showed him her gun. He flinched and stopped moving.

Jon watched. "Sorry. You have a better idea?"

Randi shook her head reluctantly. "You're right, but ask next time. Remember that discussion we had about politeness? We'd better move. No telling how long he'll be there if he learns we were inquiring about him at the Pasteur. You've got your walkie-talkie?"

"Of course." Jon patted the pocket of his black trench coat. He hurried off along the narrow sidewalk. The lighted windows of the four-, five-, and six-story apartment houses were beacons above the deep valley of the street. At No. 15, he leaned back casually against the building and watched. Men and women were sauntering off to bars and bistros or perhaps home. A few couples, young and old, held hands, enjoying the spring twilight and each other. Jon waited until no one was close enough to observe him, and he made his move.

The building's outer door was ajar, and there was no concierge. He took out his Walther, slipped inside, and climbed the stairs to the third floor. The door of the rear apartment was closed. He listened and after a moment heard the sound of a radio in a distant room. Somewhere inside, someone had turned on a water tap and he could hear water rushing into a basin. He tried the door, but it was locked. He stepped back and examined it — a standard spring lock. If there were a dead bolt and it was locked, too, he would have a lot harder time getting in. On the other hand, most people were careless, not engaging the dead bolt until they went to bed.

He took out his small case of picklocks and went to work. He was still working when the water stopped running. There was a thunderous noise, and a fusillade from inside tore through the door inches above Jon's head. As needle-like pieces of wood shot through the air, pain seared Jon's side, and he clove to the floor, striking his left shoulder. Damn, he'd been hit. A wave of dizziness swept through him. He scrambled up to a sitting position, leaning back against the wall across from the shattered door, his Walther out and covering it. His side throbbed painfully, but he ignored it. He stared at the door.

When no one came out, he finally unbuttoned his coat and pulled up his shirt. A bullet had torn through his clothes and the flesh above his waist, leaving a purple gouge. It was bleeding, but not badly, and nothing serious had been damaged. He would deal with it later. He left the shirt out; the black fabric of his trench coat hid the blood and bullet holes.

He stood up, the Walther ready, stepped aside, and tossed his case of picklocks against the door. Another fusillade smashed and splintered more of the wood and metal, this time destroying the lock. Screams, shouts, and curses from above and below filled the stairwell.

With his right shoulder, Jon slammed through the door, dove to the side, rolled, and came up with his pistol in both hands. And stared.

A small, attractive woman sat cross-legged on a shabby couch facing the door, a large AK-47 in her hands, the weapon still aimed at the door. In apparent shock, she stared at it as if she had not seen him smash through.

"Put the weapon down!" Jon commanded in French. "Down! Now!"

Suddenly the woman snarled, leaped up, and swung the Kalashnikov toward him. He kicked, knocking the assault rifle from her hands. Grabbing her arm, he turned her around and pushed her ahead of him as he searched the apartment room by room.

There was no one else there. He put the Walther to the tiny woman's head and snarled in French, "Where is Dr. Suleiman?"

"Where you won't find him, chien!"

"What is he, your boyfriend?"

Her eyes snapped. "Jealous?"

Jon took a walkie-talkie two-way radio from his trench coat pocket and spoke low, "He's not here, but he was. Be careful."

He returned the walkie-talkie to his pocket, ripped up a bedsheet to tie the woman securely to a kitchen chair, and hurried from the apartment, letting the door lock behind him. He ran down the stairs and out into the street.

In the cobbled alley behind the apartment building that stank of urine and old wine, Randi stared up at the darkened windows of the third floor, her Beretta ready. Beside her, Hakim Gatta shifted nervously from foot to foot, a frightened rabbit eager to bolt for cover. They were waiting beneath a linden tree where the shadows were pitch-black. Above them, a slice of the night sky was visible, the stars just beginning to show, distant pinpricks among the clouds.

Randi prodded him with the Beretta. "You're sure he was up there?"

"Yes. I told you. He was there when I left." He ran the fingers of one hand, then the other through his mop of curly black hair. "They shouldn't've of told you I lived in the same building."

Randi ignored him, calculating. "And you're positive this is the only way out?"

"I told you!" Hakim almost screamed.

"Quiet." She looked down, shooting him a fierce look.

He lowered his voice and was complaining to himself when the violent fusillade of shots from above reverberated through the alley.

"Down!"

The little man collapsed to the cobblestones, whimpering. She dropped down, too, and strained to hear more movement from inside the building. There was nothing, and then a second noisy volley echoed from upstairs, followed by what sounded like wood exploding.

Randi glared at the cowering Hakim. "There'd better not be another way out."

"I told you the truth! I swear, I"

At the sound of pounding feet, Randi looked up. The apartment building's rear door burst open, and a man blasted out at full speed. But within four steps he slowed to a fast walk, a 9mm pistol in his hand but held low to his side where it would be less noticeable. He was jumpy, and his head turned constantly as he looked for danger up and down the alley.

Randi's radio crackled. She pulled Hakim close, clamped her hand over his mouth, and listened as Jon reported, "He's not here, but he was. Be careful."

"I've got him. Meet me in front if you can."

Chapter Twenty-two

As Randi watched, the man turned and hurried toward the far end of the alley, braking occasionally as if he seemed to realize that rushing would draw attention. He was escaping, but not running in panic. Randi handed euros to Hakim and warned him to stay down and silent until she and the man were gone. He nodded eagerly, his eyes wide with fear.

She stood up, and as she padded forward, she pulled her miniature walkie-talkie from her jacket pocket. She carried it in her left hand. In her right was her Beretta.

The fleeing man stopped where the alley met the street. He scanned left and right. Randi flattened back against the wall, not breathing. In the light of passing headlights, she saw that he was short and slender, with straight black hair worn down to his shoulders. In his late twenties, she guessed. Well-dressed in a blue Western blazer, white shirt, striped tie, gray slacks, and black oxfords. He had alert, intelligent dark eyes and the longer, high-checked Filipino-Malaysian face that was typical of the Moros of Mindanao. So this was Dr. Akbar Suleiman, worried and scared. He continued his patient surveillance, but he did not leave the mouth of the alley.

Randi spoke into her walkie-talkie: "He's waiting for something. Get as close to the rue Combray as you can."

She had barely closed the walkie-talkie when a small, black Subaru sedan screeched to a halt in front of Dr. Suleiman. A rear door swung open, and he leaped inside. Before the door could slam, the Subaru drove off. Randi ran down the alley and arrived just as a second car, an equally black Ford Crown Victoria, skidded to a stop. Jon ran from the front of the building and around to the street side of the car. He and Randi jumped into the backseat together.

The driver sped off in the same direction as the Subaru. Randi leaned forward behind the driver. "Has Max got the Subaru?"

"Square in his sights," Aaron Isaacs told her.

"Great. Follow them."

Aaron nodded. "That Smith with you, or Howell?"

She introduced them. "Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M.D., at the moment attached to army intelligence. Jon, meet Aaron Isaacs, our chief in Paris."

Jon could feel Isaacs's eyes studying him, trying to analyze what he saw, assess the truth of his story. Suspicion was the CIA's trade.

Isaacs's radio crackled, and a disembodied male voice reported, "The Subaru's stopping in front of the Hotel St-Sulpice, near Carrefour de L'Odon. Two men are getting out and entering the hotel. The Subaru's driving off. Instructions?"

Randi leaned over the seat, and Aaron handed her his mike. "Follow the Subaru, Max."

"You got it, little lady."

"Go to hell, Max."

Aaron glanced back. "The hotel?"

"You read my mind," she told him.

Three minutes later, the Crown Victoria pulled to a stop a half block from the Hotel St-Sulpice. Randi studied the building. "Tell me about it, Aaron."

"Cheap. Eight floors. Used to cater to the usual bohemian crowd of the quarter, then to North Africans, now mostly to low-rent tourists. No side or rear exits or entrances. Front only."

The car's built-in radio crackled again, and Max's voice reappeared: "The Subaru is a rental from a chauffeur service. Reservation made by-phone. No info on the passenger or the pickup."

"Come back here to the hotel to get Aaron. We'll keep his Crown Victoria."

Max said instantly, "Does that mean no date tonight, Randi?"

Randi was losing patience. "Talk like a good boy, or I'll tell your wife."

"Oh, yeah. You're right. I'm married." And the radio went dead.

Randi shook her head. While she and Aaron talked over their respective assignments, Jon was thinking about Marty. He broke into the CIA dialogue: "Marty should be awake by now, Randi. Plus we could use Peter with us on this."

"Dr. Suleiman could come out anytime," she objected.

"True, but if Max drives me to the hospital, I can get there and back quickly. In case of trouble, you and Max can use the radios to confer, and I'll take a walkie-talkie so he can call in the hospital."

"What about not using anything wireless?" Randi objected.

Jon shook his head. "Wherever they have the DNA computer, it's not likely to be focused on local Paris police calls that don't use a satellite. For one thing, they can't have any idea Suleiman's on the run yet. No, it's almost impossible we'd be overheard or tracked. So if Suleiman moves before I get back, let me know. Peter, Max, and I'll join you there."

Randi agreed, and Aaron announced he would stay on the job with Randi until Jon and Max returned. The two Langley agents continued their discussion, and when Max arrived in a Chrysler Imperial, Jon said good-bye and climbed into the front passenger seat next to Max.

"You got a med kit here?" Jon asked as the car wove through traffic, heading southwest toward the hospital.

"Sure. Glove compartment. Why?"

"Nothing much. Just a scratch." He cleaned the bullet wound on his side and applied antibiotic cream to it. He taped a bandage to his side, made sure it was secure, then packed the med supplies back into the kit. He returned it to the glove compartment as they neared the hospital.

Jon moved quickly through the cavernous galleria of the mammoth Pompidou Hospital, past the palm trees and gift shop, and up the escalators to the ICU. He was eager to see Marty, feeling optimistic. Surely by now Marty would be awake, perhaps even feeling like his usual stubborn self. At the desk that guarded the ICU, Jon identified himself to a nurse he had not seen before.

"Your name's on the list, Doctor, but Dr. Zellerbach has been moved to a private room on the fourth floor. Didn't anyone tell you?"

"I've been out of the city. Is Dr. Dubost still here?"

"Sorry, Doctor. He's gone for the night. Unless there's an emergency, of course."

"Of course. Then give me Dr. Zellerbach's room number."

On the fourth floor, the first sight he had of the door to Marty's new private room made his stomach drop. There was not a single guard outside. He glanced all around, but saw no sign of anyone else watching the room from anywhere. Where were the Sret? MI6? He slid his hand inside his coat, grabbed his Walther, and held it at the ready just inside his trench coat. Fearing the worst, he passed nurses, doctors, attendants, and patients, his gaze blotting them from his mind as he closed in on Marty's door.

He tested it to see whether it was fully closed. It was. With his left hand, he slowly turned the knob until he felt it click open. Holding his weapon in both hands, he used his foot to nudge open the door just enough so he could slip inside, the Walther extended in front, sweeping the room.

His breath seemed to catch in his throat. The room was empty. The bed's covers were thrown back, the bottom sheet rumpled as if by a restless patient. No Marty. No Peter. No guards. No plainclothes or MI6 in disguise. His nerves almost vibrating with alertness, he walked deeper into the room and stopped. On the far side of the bed lay two corpses. Jon did not have to examine them to know they were beyond his or anyone's help. Blood had pooled around them. Although it appeared to be thickening at the edges, it was relatively fresh. Both were dressed in doctors' scrubs, complete with booties and masks. He could tell by their body shapes that neither man was Marty or Peter.

He exhaled and knelt. Each had been stabbed once by a two-edged knife handled by an expert. This could easily be Peter's work. But where were he and Marty? Where were the guards? Jon rose slowly. Clearly no one in the hospital was aware of what had happened. No panic, no alarm, no hint Marty was not where he was supposed to be. The guards were gone, two men were murdered, and Peter and Marty had vanished, all without causing a stir, or, apparently, being noticed at all.

His walkie-talkie beeped on his belt. He switched it on. "Smith. What's up, Max?"

"Randi reports the bird has a companion and is moving. She and Aaron are going after them. She says we should hit the road. She'll direct us to wherever they follow the guy."

"On my way."

His distraught gaze took in the silent private room once more. Peter was good, even good enough to have pulled off all of this without anyone's knowing, although Jon had no idea exactly how he had done it and managed to hide and escape with a sick patient like Marty. But what had happened to the two Legionnaires at the door? To all the plainclothes people who should have been here?

Just as Peter could have accomplished all this, so could the terrorists. The terrorists could have lured away the sentries and guards, killed and hidden them, captured Peter and Marty, and killed them somewhere else. For a long moment, he did not move.

He could not lose a quarry who could lead them to the DNA computer. He would alert the Pans police, the CIA, and Fred Klein to what he had found here and hope they could track Marty and Peter.

He jammed the walkie-talkie back into his pocket, sheathed his gun, and ran out to where Max waited with the Chrysler door open.

The small black bakery van turned right onto the boulevard St-Michel. At the wheel of the Crown Victoria, Aaron slowed, let the van pull ahead while still keeping it in sight. It continued steadily south.

Randi guessed, "He's heading for the Périphérique." It was the broad road that circled inner Paris. She relayed her guess to Max, Jon, and Peter, who were, she hoped, already on the road and closing in.

"I think you're right," Aaron agreed. He tightened the distance between his car and the van, beginning to worry he might miss a sudden turn.

They had been following this new lead perhaps ten minutes. It had all begun when the bakery van had pulled up outside the Hotel St-Sulpice. The driver had jumped out and opened the side doors as if to unload a delivery of bread. Instead, Dr. Akbar Suleiman and a second man ran from the hotel entrance and climbed inside. The driver looked both ways as he slammed the doors shut. Then he carefully walked around, checking, climbed inside, and drove off.

"Damn," Randi swore.

Aaron tensed. "What do you want to do?"

"No choice. We've got to follow."

When the van reached the boulevard Périphérique, it turned onto it and headed west. Aaron kept it in sight, while Randi radioed each change of direction to Max, who was driving the other car. Soon the van blended onto the A10 toll road, and many miles later when the A11 split off west to Chartres and the distant sea, the van remained on the A10, now heading south.

The night sky was a foreboding canopy of black, the stars hidden by clouds, as the van continued at a constant pace past the ancient city of Orlans and over the legendary Loire River. Hours had passed. It veered suddenly west again, this time onto a two-lane local road, the D51. Abruptly, without bothering to slow, it turned sharply again onto an unnumbered back road, which it followed for several miles until it finally sped into a drive hidden by dense trees and brush.

It was a tribute to Aaron's driving that he had not lost them or apparently been spotted. When Randi congratulated him, he shrugged modestly.

He pulled off onto a shoulder. "What now?"

"We get close and watch." She was already stepping out of the car.

"Might be best to wait for Max and your friends. They're not far behind."

"You stay here. I'm going in."

She did not hear the rest of his protest. She could see the lights of a farmhouse through the trees. Moving carefully, she headed into the timber and threaded her way through the vegetation until she found what appeared to be an animal trail. With relief, she hurried along it. Unlike the one outside Toledo, this farmhouse had little open ground around it. It appeared to be more like a hunting lodge or rustic retreat for weary city workers. There were no helicopters, but there were two other cars, and two armed men leaning against the front corners of the country lodge.

Randi watched silhouettes crossing and recrossing on the other side of the window blinds, their arms gesticulating violently. It looked like an argument. Raised voices came faintly to her ears.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and a voice whispered, "How many are there?"

She turned. "Hello, Jon. Just in time. There were three men in the bakery van, and there were two cars already here. There are two guards outside, and there has to be at least one more inside whoever they came here to meet."

"Two cars? Probably more than one waiting for your wandering trio inside then."

"It's possible." She looked behind him. "Where's Peter?"

"Wish I knew." He told her what had happened at the hospital. Her heart sank as she listened. He went on. "If there were only two terrorists, and Peter killed them, then maybe he was able to figure out a way to get Marty out of there, and they're somewhere safe. After all, neither of the dead men's guns had been fired, and I found no shell casings. So, it's possible." He shook his head worriedly. "But if there were more terrorists, they could've knocked out Peter, or used knives, too. I don't like to think what they've done to Marty and Peter if that's what really happened."

"I don't like it either." The front door to the lodge opened. "We've got movement. Look."

A rectangle of bright light spilled out into the night. Dr. Akbar Suleiman stormed angrily outdoors, turning to continue arguing with someone behind. His voice carried through the night, speaking French: "I tell you my escape was clean. There was no way they could've followed me. I don't even know how they found me in the first place!"

"That's what worries me."

Jon and Randi looked at each other, recognizing the voice.

The speaker followed Suleiman from the house. It was Abu Auda. "How can you be sure they did not follow you?"

Suleiman waved his arms to encompass the estate. "Do you see them here anywhere? Do you? Of course, you don't. Ergo, they didn't follow me!"

"People who could find you, Moro, would not let you, or us, see them."

Suleiman sneered. "What then? I should allow myself to be arrested?"

"No, you would've told them everything. But it would've been better had you followed normal procedure and contacted us first so we could pursue a plan that was safer than bolting to your own friends like a panicked puppy straight to its pack."

"Well," Suleiman said sarcastically, "I didn't. Are we going to talk unproductively all night, since you're so sure they could arrive any minute and overwhelm us?"

The terrorist's eyes blazed. He barked orders in Arabic. The man who had left the hotel in Paris with Suleiman joined them from the house, followed by the driver of the bakery van and a third armed man — an Uzbek from the look of his face and Central Asian cap. The bakery driver got into the van and drove off on the rutted dirt road that led back to the rural highway.

"Let's go," Randi whispered.

She and Jon sped through the woods to where Aaron and Max waited in their cars, which were now hidden off the road in brush.

"What's up?" Aaron asked, quickly climbing out.

Max joined him and was staring at Randi as if he were a starving Neanderthal and she were the only meat he had seen in a year.

Randi ignored him. "Neither of you can quit now. They're using two cars. No way we can know which one Suleiman's in." She did not add that they could not know which car Abu Auda was in either. Of the two, he could be the more important quarry. "We'll have to split up, tail one car each."

"And damn carefully," Jon added. "Abu Auda is suspicious someone followed Suleiman, and he'll be alert."

Aaron and Max grumbled about their own work and a night of lost sleep, but Randi's mission took top priority.

Jon got in beside Max, while Randi rejoined Aaron. Moments later, the two cars carrying the terrorists left the dirt road for the country highway. Shortly afterward, Aaron and Max drove their cars out to pursue. They kept back almost out of sight, spotting taillights sporadically. It was difficult surveillance and risky, and they could easily lose their prey. But when the two Langley cars finally reached the A6, the four agents saw the terrorists' cars clearly. Once on the toll highway, it would be simpler to follow.

But then one of the cars took the ramp south, the other the ramp north. Aaron and Max separated, following as agreed. Jon settled in next to Max, bone-weary already. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Twenty-three

The tense meeting that morning of the president, his senior staff, and the Joint Chiefs was interrupted by the abrupt opening of the door between the Oval Office and that of the president's executive secretary. The secretary Mrs. Pike, frizzy-haired and known for her brusqueness gazed questioningly into the room.

Irritation creased Sam Castilla's forehead, but if Estelle was interrupting, he knew it had to be important. Still, these last few days had been nerve-racking and his nights sleepless, so he snapped, "I thought I said no interruptions, Estelle."

"I know, sir. Sorry, but General Henze's on the line."

The president nodded, smiled a mute apology to Mrs. Pike, and picked up the receiver. "Carlos? How's everything over there?" He gazed at the cluster of people sitting and standing around the Oval Office. The name "Carlos" told them it was General Henze, and they had grown even more alert.

"Almost nothing new in Europe, Mr. President," General Henze reported. His voice was resolute, but the president heard an undertow of anger as well. "There hasn't been a single breakdown or interruption anywhere on the continent for more than twenty-four hours."

The president decided to ignore the anger for the time being. "A bleak ray of sunshine, but at least it's something. What about locating the terrorists?"

"Again nothing so far." Henze hesitated. "May I be frank, sir?"

"I insist on it. What's the problem, Carlos?"

"I had a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith the army doctor you sent over to handle the search. He wasn't reassuring. He's shooting in the dark, Mr. President. Not only does he suspect that a trusted aide to General La Porte is mixed up with the crazies, he flat out said even I wasn't above suspicion. In short, he knows damn little."

Inwardly, the president sighed. "It seems to me his progress has been impressive."

"He's dug up a lot. That's true, but I don't see he's any closer to the damned dingus. I think he's spinning his turbans. Shooting off half-cocked, and I'm damned concerned. Shouldn't we put everything we have on this, not just one lone man, no matter how good he may be?"

From the sound of it, the president decided, the general would be a lot happier sending the entire 82nd Airborne and all of the 1st Air Cav to search the Middle East, house-to-house, for the terrorists. Of course, the downside of that could be World War III, but the general had not thought that far ahead.

"I'll take your thoughts and objections under advisement, General, with my thanks," the president told him. "If I decide to change horses, I'll let you know. But don't forget Langley's on the job, too, as is MI6."

There was stony silence. Then: "Yes, sir. Of course."

The president nodded to himself. The general would toe the line for a while at least. "Continue to keep me informed. Thank you, Carlos."

After he hung up, President Castilla hunched his big shoulders, dropped his chin onto his tented fingers, and peered through his titanium glasses outdoors into the relentless morning storm. The sky was so dismal and gray with rain he could not see beyond the Rose Garden, which did not improve his frame of mind. He was more than uneasy himself, even scared, that Covert-One had not found the molecular computer.

But he could not let his misgivings show, at least not yet. He turned to focus on the advisers and military leaders who were seated on the chairs and sofa and standing against the mantel, waiting. His gaze lowered to linger on the Great Seal of the United States that was woven into the carpet in the middle of the group, and he told himself the United States of America was not beaten yet, and it would not be beaten.

He said calmly, "As you heard, that was General Henze from NATO. Everything's been quiet over there, too. No attack for twenty-four hours."

"I don't like it," Chief of Staff Charles Ouray said. "Why would the people with the DNA computer stop harassing us now? Threatening us? Do they have all they wanted?" In his early sixties, he had an almost lineless, triangular face and a low, gruff voice. He crossed his arms and frowned. "I seriously doubt it."

"Or perhaps our countermeasures are stopping them," National Security Adviser Powell-Hill suggested hopefully. Slender, businesslike, and no-nonsense as usual, she was immaculately turned out, this time in a Donna Karan suit. "With luck, all the backup systems we've brought online have stumped them."

Lieutenant General Ivan Guerrero, army chief of staff, leaned forward and nodded in vigorous agreement. His square-fingered hands were clasped between his knees, and he looked up and around at the group, studying them with a cool, calculating gaze that was more than confident, it radiated the certainty that was too-often prized over intellect in military command. "We've got our backups installed down to the onboard targeting systems in our tanks. I think we've outwitted the bastards, whoever the hell they are, and their diabolical molecular computer."

"I agree," Air Force General Bruce Kelly said from where he stood beside the fireplace. His florid face was firm as he looked at General Guerrero and then at the others. Although he enjoyed his liquor perhaps too much, he also was shrewd and tireless in the pursuit of a goal.

The marine chief, Lieutenant General Clason Oda, who had just recently risen to his position and was still in a honeymoon of popularity, chimed in with his confidence that the countermeasures had worked and stymied the terrorists. "Good old-fashioned American know-how at work," he concluded, beaming at the clich.

As his people continued to discuss backup systems, President Castilla listened without joining in, hearing both the voices and the rain outside, drumming an ominous counterpoint to their optimism.

When their discussion ended, Castilla cleared his throat. "Your efforts and thoughts are encouraging, ladies and gentlemen. Still, I must offer another explanation, one which you won't like but that we must pay attention to. Our intelligence sources overseas have suggested an entirely different scenario. They believe that rather than our defenses beating off cyber attacks over the last day, there have simply been no attacks."

Admiral Brose, the Joint Chiefs' chairman, frowned. "What does that signify to you, Mr. President? That they've backed off? They've made their point and are going back into their holes?"

"I wish it did, Stevens. I truly wish it did. But no. One part of the explanation may be some most welcome successes by our intelligence people themselves. I'm glad to report we now know the name of the group that has the DNA computer. It's the Crescent Shield. Our people may have delayed their plans."

"The Crescent Shield?" NSA Powell-Hill said. "I've never heard of them. Arabs?"

The president shook his head. "Pan-Islamic. No one has heard of them. They appear new, although with many veteran leaders and players."

"What's the second part of the explanation for their inaction, sir?" Admiral Brose asked.

The president's expression grew more sober. "That they need no more practice. They've tested all they're going to, because they've learned whatever it was they wanted to learn about their system and about us. They've also put us out of business, since we're scrambling to put alternate programs into place. In fact, they likely have accomplished exactly what they set out to do by this point. My guess is they're ready to act. This is the quiet before the killer storm, lulling us before they launch some deadly strike or strikes, God help us at our people."

"When?" Admiral Brose wanted to know.

"Probably within the next eight to forty-eight hours."

The silence was long and tense. No one made eye contact.

At last, Admiral Brose admitted, "I see your logic, sir. What do you suggest?"

The president said forcefully, "That we return to our posts and go the limit. Nothing held back. Not even the most experimental and even potentially dangerous new defense systems. We have to be prepared to stop anything they throw at us, from bacteria to a nuclear bomb."

Emily Powell-Hill's perfect eyebrows shot up. "With all due respect, sir," she protested, "these are terrorists, not global nuclear powers. I doubt they can inflict anywhere near all that."

"Really, Emily? Are you willing to stake the lives of possibly millions of Americans on that as well as you and your family's lives?"

"Yes. I am, sir," she said stubbornly.

The president tented his fingers again, rested his heavy chin on the tips, and smiled a quiet but thin smile. "Brave woman, and brave security adviser. I made a good choice. But I'm the president, Emily, and I don't have the luxury of blind courage or of rolling the dice. The potential costs are simply too high." His gaze swept the room, including all of them, no matter the differences of opinion. "It's our country, and we're all in this together. We've got the burden, but we also have some opportunities here to defend and fight back. We'd be irresponsible and mule-stupid to do less than everything we can. Now, let's go to work."

As they filed out, already discussing the steps they would take, Admiral Brose stayed behind. Once the door was closed, he spoke wearily across the room: "The media's getting suspicious, Sam. There've been leaks, and they're sniffing around hard. With the possibility of an imminent strike, shouldn't we have the press in and start briefing them? If you want, I can do it. That way you can keep out of it. You know the drill — 'an informed government source.' We can test the public's response, and prepare them for the worst, too, which isn't a bad idea."

The admiral studied the president, who suddenly looked as exhausted as the admiral felt. The president's broad shoulders were slumped, and jowls seemed to have come from nowhere to age his face ten years. Worried not only about the future but about his leader, Stevens Brose waited for an answer.

Sam Castilla shook his head. "Not yet. Give me another day. Then we'll have to do it. I don't want to start a panic. At least not yet."

"I understand. Thank you for hearing us out, Mr. President."

"You're welcome, Admiral."

Looking doubtful, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs opened the door and left. As soon as President Castilla was alone, he stood up behind his pine-table desk and paced. Outside on the colonnade, a Secret Service sentry gazed back once, his attention attracted by the movement. As soon as he saw that there was no danger, his gaze swept back over the White House grounds and the rainy sky above.

The president noted the attention, the approving look that indicated normalcy, and shook his head grimly. Nothing was normal. Everything had gone to hell in a pretty wicker handbasket. In the eighteen months since he had established Covert-One, Fred Klein and his team had never failed him. Was this to be the first time?

Tucked away on the short rue Duluth in the Sixteenth Arrondissement, the building looked like a typical town mansion of Baron Haussmann's Paris. But the elegant, if unremarkable, facade concealed one of the most exclusive and expensive private hospitals in Paris. Here the rich and infamous came for cosmetic surgery, less to fight the scoring of age than to recapture an imagined youth. Discreet and accustomed to the demands of the elite for the utmost secrecy and security, it was the perfect place to hide, if you knew the right people to convince.

Marty Zellerbach's private room was airy and comfortable, with a vase of fresh pink peonies on a low table before the window. Peter Howell sat beside the bed where Marty lay propped up. Marty's eyes were open and clear, but a bit dulled, as was to be expected when he was on a fresh dose of Mideral, the quick-acting wonder drug that enabled him to sit quietly through onerous tasks like changing light bulbs, paying bills, or visiting with a friend. Asperger's sufferers were often written off as "nerds" and "geeks", oddballs and eccentrics, or behaviorally disturbed. Some scientists estimated that as many as one in two hundred fifty people had at least a mild case. There was no cure for Asperger's, and the only help for people with more severe cases like Marty's was medication, usually in the form of stimulants for the central nervous system, such as Mideral.

The shock of events had worn off, and now Marty was acting courtly but gloomy. His soft, chubby frame was collapsed back like a weary rag doll against the white mountain of pillows. There were bandages on his forehead and arms from scrapes he had received as a result of the explosion at the Pasteur.

"My goodness, Peter." Marty's eyes skittered around the room, avoiding Peter. "It was dreadful. All that gore in the hospital room. If our lives hadn't been at stake, I would've been even more horrified."

"You could say thank you, Marty."

"I didn't? That's remiss of me. But then, Peter, you're a fighting machine. You've said so yourself. I suppose I simply took you at your word. Just another day of work for you and your sort."

Peter straightened. "My sort?"

Marty ignored Peter's glare. "I suppose the civilized world does need you, although I often cannot imagine why"

"Marty, old boy, don't tell me you're a pacificist."

"Ah, yes. Bertrand Russell, Gandhi, William Penn. Very good company. Interesting, too. Men who really thought. I could quote you passages of their speeches. Long passages." He glanced at Peter with teasing green eyes.

"Don't bother. Need I remind you that you now know how to use a weapon? An automatic rifle, at that."

Marty shuddered. "Caught." Then he smiled, ready to give Peter his due. "Well, I suppose there are times when fighting is appropriate."

"Bloody damn right. I could've trotted on out and abandoned you for those two goons in the hospital to carve up into dainty morsels. But you'll notice that I didn't."

Marty's expression changed completely. He stared, appalled. "You have a point, Peter. Thank you."

"Well done. Now should we get to business?"

Peter exhibited a bandaged cheek, left arm, and left hand, the result of the grim, quiet battle in Marty's room at the Pompidou Hospital. Marty had awakened in time to witness it all. After Peter had dispatched the two attackers, he'd located an attendant's uniform and a laundry basket on wheels, convinced Marty to crawl inside, and piled linens on top of him. Then he'd donned the attendant's uniform. The Legionnaire guards on the door had disappeared, and Peter deduced they must have been bribed, or murdered, or were themselves terrorists. But where were MI6 and the Sret? But he had no time to think about that.

Fearing more of the extremists could be nearby, he had wheeled Marty out of the hospital and straight to his rental car for the trip to this private clinic, which was run by Dr. Lucile Cameron, an old friend of Peter's from the Falkland Wars.

"Of course. You asked what happened in the lab." Marty clasped his cheeks with both hands, remembering. "Oh, my. Such a terrible experience. Emile you know, Emile Chambord?"

"I know who he is. Go on."

"Emile said he wouldn't be working that night. So I hadn't planned to go into the lab either. Then I remembered I'd left my paper on differential equations there, so I had to return for it." He paused, and his plump face quivered. "Appalling!" His eyes widened in a strange mixture of fear and elation. "Wait! There was something else. Yes. I want to tell you about everything. I've been trying to tell you"

"We know, Marty. Jon's been with you nearly every day. Randi came to see you, too. What was it you wanted to tell us?"

"Jon? And Randi as well?" Marty clutched Peter's arm and pulled him close. "Peter, listen. I must tell you. Emile wasn't in the lab, but of course I expected that. But neither was the prototype! Worst of all, there was a body on the floor. A corpse! I ran out and almost got to the stairs, when" his eyes grew haunted" there was this ear-shattering noise, and a hand seemed to lift me, throw me I screamed. I know that I screamed"

Peter grabbed the little genius in a bear hug. "It's okay, Marty. It's over. You're fine. Perfectly safe now. It's all over. You're all right." Perhaps it was the hug, or his reassuring words, or just that Marty had finally been able to relate what he had been trying to say for four days, but Peter felt Marty calm.

At the same time, Peter was deeply disappointed. Marty had told him nothing new, only that Chambord and the DNA computer had not been in the lab when the bomb exploded, but a corpse was, all of which they had figured out. But at least Marty was alive and recovering, and for that Peter was more than grateful. He released him and watched him sink back.

Marty gave a wan smile. "I guess the trauma affected me more than I realized. One never knows how one will react, does one? You say I've been in a coma?"

Marty's face spread in worry. "Where's Emile, Peter? Did he visit me, too?"

"Bad news there. The terrorists who blew up the Pasteur kidnapped him and took the DNA computer. They also kidnapped his daughter. Can you tell me whether the prototype actually works? We figured it does. True?"

"Oh, dear. Those heathens have Emile and Thérèse and the DNA computer! This is worrisome. Yes, Emile and I considered it finished. There were a few minor tests to run before we made a formal announcement. We planned to do them the next morning. This concerns me, Peter. Do you know what someone can do with our prototype, especially if they have Emile to operate it? Oh, my! What will happen to Emile and Thérèse? Too ghastly to consider!"

"We've had a graphic demonstration of what the computer can do." Peter filled in Marty about the various electronic attacks. As he described them, Marty's face flushed with anger and he clenched his fists, something Peter had never seen Marty, who really did hate violence, do.

"How impossibly awful! I must help. We must save the Chambords! We must get back the prototype! Get me my slacks"

"Whoa, you're by no means recovered, my boy. Besides, you don't have anything here but that darling hospital gown of yours." As Marty opened his mouth to complain, Peter hurried on. "Now you just lie back again, lad. Perhaps in a few days, right?" He paused. "I have a critical question for you. Can you build a DNA computer, something so we can fight back?"

"No, Peter. I'm sorry. What happened is I didn't just hop on a plane and arrive unannounced at Emile's lab. No, he called me in Washington and intrigued me with his great secret, his molecular computer. He needed me to show him how to make the most out of operating it. So that was my end of our partnership. Emile's, of course, was creating the machine himself. Everything was in his notes. Do you have his notes?"

"No one's been able to find them."

"I was afraid that was the situation."

After Peter had reassured Marty that everything possible was being done, he made two calls, using the standard phone by Marty's bedside. That finished, he and Marty talked longer.

As he prepared to leave, Peter said soberly, "You're in excellent hands here, Marty. Lochiel's a hell of a doctor and a soldier. He'll make sure no one can get to you, and he'll monitor your health. A coma's nothing to fool around with. Even an overeducated egghead like you knows that. Meanwhile, I have a bit of work to do myself, then I'll be back before you can say Jack the Ripper."

" 'Jack the Ripper.' Very funny." Marty gave a small nod of the head in tribute. "Personally, I prefer Pete the Sticker."

"Oh?"

"Much more appropriate, Peter. After all, that nasty, sharp stiletto of yours saved our lives in the hospital. Ergo: Pete the Sticker."

"There's that."

As Peter returned the smile, the two men accidentally looked into each other's eyes. Both smiled wider. Then they averted their gazes.

"I suppose I'll be all right," Marty grumbled. "Goodness knows, I'm safer here than with you and all the trouble you can get yourself into." Then he brightened. "I forgot. It puzzles me."

"What puzzles you?"

"The painting. Well, not really a painting — a print copy of a painting. It was Emile's, and it was missing, too. I wonder why? Why on earth would terrorists want that?"

"What print, Marty?" Peter was impatient. He was already making plans in his mind. "Missing from where?"

"Emile's laboratory. It was his print of the famous The Grand Army Retreats from Moscow painting. You know it. Everyone does. It's the one in which Napoleon is riding his white horse, his chin sunk on his chest, with his ragged troops trudging through the snow behind him. They've been badly beaten. I think it was after the battle for Moscow. Now, why would terrorists steal that? It wasn't valuable. Just a print, after all. Not the real painting."

Peter shook his head. "I don't know, Marty."

"Odd, isn't it?" Marty mused. He stroked his chin, looking for a meaning.

Fred Klein sat in the presidential bedroom, chewing again on the stem of his unlit pipe. There had been moments in the last few days when his jaw had been so tight he had nearly bitten through the stem. He had faced other crises of great magnitude and desperation, but never anything as tense and uncertain as this. It was the sense of impotence, the knowledge that if the enemy wanted to use the DNA computer there would be no defense against it. All their mighty weapons, built so carefully and expensively over the last half century, were useless, although they gave a feeling of security to the uninformed and unimaginative. In the end, all they had were the intelligence services. A few agents following a faint trail, like a single hunter in a planet-sized wilderness.

President Castilla came in from his sitting room, shed his suit jacket, loosened his tie, and flopped into a heavy leather armchair. "That was Pat Remia over at 10 Downing. Seems they've lost a top general — General Mooreand they think it's the doing of our terrorists." He leaned back, resting his head against the chair, his eyes closed.

"I know," Klein said. The light behind him reflected on his face, emphasizing the receding hairline and the deepening ravines in his face.

"Did you hear what General Henze thinks of our tactics? Our progress?"

Klein nodded.

"And?"

"He's wrong."

The president shook his head and pursed his lips. "I'm worried, Fred. General Henze says he's unimpressed by Smith's prospects for finding these people again, and I have to admit from what you've told me I'm concerned myself."

"In clandestine operations, Sam, progress is sometimes hard to see. We've got all our intelligence resources out there working on various aspects of this. Plus, Smith's teamed up with a couple of highly seasoned fellow agents. One from CIA, and one from MI6. It's unofficial, of course. But through them he can tap directly into CIA and MI6 resources. Because of all the communications problems, I haven't been as much help to him as I'd ordinarily be."

"Do they know about Covert-One?"

"Absolutely not."

The president crossed his hands over his wide girth. The room filled with silence. At last he looked across at Klein. "Thanks, Fred. Stay in touch. Close touch."

Klein stood up and headed toward the door. "I will. Thank you, Mr. President."

Chapter Twenty-four

From where he lay on the low, sun-bleached hill, Jon raised his head just enough to see the Far de la Mola lighthouse, which loomed to the east on the highest point of this windswept island. All around spread pristine beaches that led down to clear, unspoiled waters. Since the island was not only largely undeveloped but essentially flat, he and Max had used every possible rock and thicket of the tough native brush for cover as they crawled closer to the three terrorists whom they had been following through the long night.

The trio — Dr. Akbar Suleiman, the other man from the Hotel St. Sulpice, and one of the armed guards from the lodge had parked their car above a narrow strip of sand, where they paced impatiently and stared out at a large, fast-looking motorboat that swung at anchor a hundred yards offshore.

In the small hours of the morning, the terrorists' Mercedes had crossed south into Spain, with Jon and Max tailing. It had been a long drive. By dawn, they were heading past Barcelona, the tips of the towers of the great Gaudi church of the Sagrada Familia to the right, and the seventeenth-century castle on the hill of Montjuic to the left. The extremists' car continued on, approaching El Prat Airport, and then past the major terminals. Finally it slowed and turned into an area of corporate, private, and charter facilities, where it parked in front of a helicopter charter service.

As the terrorists entered the heliport terminal, Jon and Max waited, their car far back, its motor idling. There was still no sign of the second car or of Abu Auda.

Jon asked, "The Company has a presence in Barcelona, right?"

"Possibly," Max acknowledged.

"Then get a chopper here and fast," Jon told him.

Soon after that, Dr. Suleiman and the others lifted off in a chartered civilian Bell 407. When a Seahawk helicopter arrived, Jon and Max had pursued the Bell across the Mediterranean to here, the southernmost main Balearic Island, where they were now lying among rocks and brush above the strip of beach.

As Jon watched, a large rubber raft splashed over the side of the motorboat that was anchored offshore. Jon had only minutes to decide what to do. If he lost the terrorists, it could take days, maybe weeks, to track the destination of the fast craft, which looked like a converted PT boat. Tailing a helicopter in another helicopter was not in itself inherently suspicious. After all, that was how they had followed the extremists here. More than one chopper could be going to the same place, and the tailing craft could hang far enough back in a clear sky to be almost invisible. Plus, the noise of distant engines would be drowned out by the quarry's own engines, and the question of fuel would not come up. But a helicopter following a boat, forced to fly circles because of its far greater speed, would instantly cause alarm. And there was no certainty the tracking helicopter would have enough fuel.

"I'm getting aboard that boat," he told Max. "You cover me, and wait for Randi to show. If she doesn't, fly back to Barcelona and contact her wherever she is. Tell her what I'm doing, and that she should throw out a dragnet for the boat. If she can't find it, sit tight, and I'll contact her."

Max gave a short nod. Then he resumed studying the speedboat swinging lazily on the swell of the blue water. "It looks damn chancy to me."

"Can't be helped."

Jon crawled backward until out of sight of the shore. Running, he circled to the far side of a rocky promontory, stripped to his shorts, and tied his trousers, Walther, and stiletto around his waist with his belt. From there, he trotted down to the sand and out into the shimmering sea. The water was cool, not yet as warm as it would be in summer. He dove in and swam underwater as far as he could, surfaced carefully, and looked around. The raft was to his left, halfway to shore, with a single crew member steering the small outboard motor toward the waiting trio on the beach. From what Jon could see, the deck of the old PT boat appeared deserted. He took a deep breath and submerged.

As he swam below the blue surface, came up, and submerged again, he considered options. The boat would be operated by no more than a crew of five, plus a captain. At least one crew member was on his way ashore, and no one else had appeared on deck. Where were the others? He had to get aboard and find clothes and a safe hiding place. It was not going to be easy, but there was no alternative.

He surfaced beside the boat, its white hull rising and falling with the swell. The stern slapped the water as it came down again, the power of it creating a small wake that pushed Jon off. He took a deep breath, dove again, and came up on the vessel's ocean side, hidden from shore. He paddled to where a rope-and-board ladder hung and treaded water as he strained to hear voices or movement aboard, but the only sounds anywhere were the excited cries of seagulls heading in to the island and the regular slapping of the boat's stern.

His nerves were on edge. Although there was no indication anyone was on the boat, he had no guarantee of that. His stiletto in his teeth, he timed the rhythm of the swell and caught the ladder as the boat slammed down. It was a balancing act, but he scrambled up the ladder, reached the deck, and raised his head.

No one was visible. He listened to his heart thunder, and then he climbed higher, crawled onto the deck, and fell prone, trying to be un-noticeable both on the boat and from the island. As he waited, he took his bearings. What he noted first was that not only was the large rubber raft gone, so was the usual dinghy. That was good news.

Watching and listening, he crab-walked, bare feet padding quietly on the wood, to the main hatch, where he slipped below. In the dim light, he worked his way forward along a narrow gangway between small rooms like the officers' quarters on a submarine. He was aware of every creak of the boat, of every groan of a joist, as he waited for the sound of a human voice or footstep.

There were five identical cubicles, one for each crewman, and a sixth at least twice as large for the captain. He found a pair of athletic shoes that would fit him. By the personal items lying around, all the cubicles appeared occupied. Individual quarters were a luxury afforded to few on a small, narrow boat built for speed. This many could mean long periods at sea and hazardous duty. Which also could mean a laundry. Even terrorists needed to wash their clothes, especially Muslims, for whom cleanliness was a commandment.

All the way forward, Jon found a tiny laundry with a compact washer and dryer and a pile of dirty garments. Clothes lost here were less likely to be missed. He grabbed a shirt and socks to go with the pants he had brought. He dressed quickly and worked his way back aft, where he discovered another necessity for a long time spent at seastacked barrels of diesel fuel. And farther back an answer a large hold with wall brackets and straps to keep cargo steady in heavy seas. There were traces of white powder on the slats of floorboards designed to keep cargo dry even if the sea washed aboard. The powder looked like heroin or cocaine. Most likely, this boat smuggled drugs and, from the heavy straps, maybe guns, too.

All of this told him a great deal, but the emptiness of the cargo compartment revealed more: Today's trip was special, not usual business.

He froze. There was the faint but definite noise of a boat's motor, and it was approaching. He needed a hiding place. He could not use the cargo hold, since it was empty. The tiny cabins were out, since men were assigned there. He had passed the galley aft, which was a possibility. Still, someone would probably get hungry even on a short trip. Thinking rapidly, he hurried back along the narrow passage. Above him, the noise of feet landing on the deck made his pulse accelerate. Voices sounded uncomfortably close above his head.

His chest tight, he finally located a large storage locker all the way forward. It was crammed with ropes, chains, canvas, hatch covers, engine parts, and other supplies needed to maintain a seagoing boat under hard use. As he monitored the noises of the boarding crew, he shoved materiel around until he had a snug hole. Feet sounded in the corridor outside his hiding spot. He scrambled into the hole and pulled a hatch cover over to roof it. He crossed his legs and sank down, nerves pulsing, his back against the bulkhead. His trousers were wet and clammy.

Voices shouted above, and two pairs of feet stopped outside his door. A conversation commenced in Arabic. Suddenly one of the men laughed, then the other, and with relief he listened to the pair move away. As their voices faded, the boat's powerful engines oversized, he judged roared into throbbing life, shaking the entire craft. The anchor rose and clanged against the side, and he felt the boat swing.

The momentum threw him into a coil of rough ropes at his side, and then acceleration slammed him back against the bulkhead. As the boat leaped ahead, gaining speed, he was already beginning to ache. Still, he smiled. He was alive, his Walther was in his hand, and there was promise that on the other side of the ride he would find answers.

Randi stood below the lighthouse of Far de la Mola, the statue of the famous French author Jules Verne nearby, and stared out across the sea to where the faint shape of the sleek motorboat rode steadily south. "He got on the boat okay?"

"He did," Max told her. "After everyone was aboard, and she weighed anchor, I saw nothing going on. No big disturbance or fight, so I'd say he found a place to hide. What happened to the SUV you were tailing?"

"They led us to Barcelona, too, but we lost them in the city."

"You think they lost you deliberately?"

"Yes. We were made." She grimaced with disgust. "Then Salinger, the station chief in Madrid, relayed the information that you'd called for a helicopter. It took us time to pin down the right charter service and squeeze the destination out of them. Then we flew here."

"This could be bad for Jon."

Randi nodded anxiously as she stared out to sea where the speeding boat had disappeared into the gray mists on the horizon. "I know. Even if Jon arrives safely all the way to wherever they're going, he's in trouble."

"What the hell do we do?"

"Get the Seahawk refueled so we can fly to North Africa."

"It's got extra tanks, so it can make it the way it is. But if we try to follow the boat, they'll spot us for sure."

"We won't follow," Randi decided. "We'll locate them and fly straight on to Africa. They'll see us. No doubt about it. But when we fly past without showing interest, they'll figure we're just another chopper on a trip."

"Why fly over them at all?"

"To make sure they're heading for Africa and not Spain, or even Corsica."

"Then what?" Max waited.

"Then we send out everything we can to find them." Her dark eyes turned worriedly back out to sea.

The fisherman's bar stood among other weather-beaten buildings above the ranked fishing vessels that were moored along the quays. Twilight had fallen, and the waterfront was crowded with the usual roistering throngs that signaled the boats had come in and the fish market was in full swing. Inside the old bar, French and Arabic were the primary languages in the cacophony of loud talk.

A short, stocky man threaded through shifting gray curtains of cigarette smoke. He had the rolling gait of a seaman who had just stepped ashore. He wore jeans, a stained T-shirt revealing muscular arms, and a merchant sailor's cap with a soft white crown, a black rim, and a shiny black peak.

When he reached the copper-topped bar, he leaned toward the bartender and spoke in broken French: "I'm supposed to meet a boat captain named Marius."

The bartender scowled at the bad French. He looked the stranger up and down and finally announced, "Englishman?"

"Oui, yes."

"Off that container ship come in yesterday from Japan?"

"Yes."

"You should learn better French, you come in here."

"I'll take that under consideration," the Englishman said, undisturbed. "What about Marius?"

A typical Marseille feisty character, the bartender glared for a moment, then jerked his head toward a beaded curtain that separated the boisterous main room from a back room. The English "sailor," whose name was Carsten Le Saux and who actually spoke excellent French and was not a sailor at all, thanked the bartender in even worse French and ambled back through the curtain to sit across a scarred table from the only occupant of the room.

As if by a miracle, Le Saux's French improved. "Captain Marius?"

The man at the table was whip-like, of medium height, with the usual thick, dark, Gallic hair worn down to his shoulders and hacked off with a knife. His sleeveless shirt revealed a body that seemed to consist of nothing but bone and muscle. He tossed back a marc, a very cheap brandy, pushed the empty glass away, and sat back is if waiting for something momentous to occur.

Le Saux smiled with his mouth, not his eyes, as he waved to a waiter in a white apron, who was swabbing dirt around on an empty table. "Deux marcs, s'il vous plat."

Captain Marius said, "You're the one who called?"

"That's right."

"You said there were dollars? One hundred of them?"

Carsten Le Saux reached into his trouser pocket and produced a hundred-dollar bill. As he laid it on the table, the captain nodded but did not pick it up. Their marcs arrived. The captain reached for his.

The two men sipped slowly. At last Le Saux said, "I've heard you and your boat had a close call at sea a few nights ago."

"Where did you hear? From who?"

"From a source. He was convincing. He said you were almost run down by some large vessel. A rather unpleasant experience, I expect."

Captain Marius studied the hundred-dollar bill. He picked it up and folded it into an ancient leather pocket purse he produced from somewhere. "It was two nights ago. Fishing had been bad, so I sailed out to a bank I know and most others don't. It was where my father would go when there was no catch closer in." He took a half-crushed packet of cigarettes printed in Arabic from his shirt pocket and extracted a pair of bent, foul-smelling, Algerian cigarettes.

Le Saux took one. Marius lit both, blew a toxic cloud into the air of the curtained room, and leaned closer. His voice was intense, as if he were still shaken by the event. "It came out of nowhere. Like a skyscraper or a mountain. More like a mountain, because it was a behemoth. Only moving. A moving, mountainous behemoth, bearing down on my little boat. No lights inside or outside, so it was darker than the night itself. Later I saw it did have its running lights on, but who could see them so far above, eh?" He sat back and shrugged, as if it no longer mattered. "It missed us to port. We were nearly swamped, but here I am."

"The Charles de Gaulle?"

"Or the Flying Dutchman, he in?"

Carsten Le Saux also sat back, thoughtful. "Why would she be running dark? Were there destroyers? Other ships?"

"I saw none."

"What was her course?"

"From her wake, I'd say south-southwest."

Le Saux nodded. He waved to the waiter again and ordered another pair of marcs. He pushed back his chair, rose, and smiled down at the fishing boat captain. "Merci. Be careful out there." He paid the waiter as he left.

Twilight had turned into indigo night. On the crowded waterfront, the pungent odors of fish and alcohol filled the air. Le Saux paused to gaze at the rows of masts and listen to the lulling sound of ropes slapping against wood hulls. The ancient harbor had supported one city or another here since the days of the Greeks in the seventh century B.C. He turned and gazed around as if he were a tourist, then he walked quickly along above the quays. To his left, on a hill high above Marseille, stood the ornate basilica of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the modern city's guardian, aglow with light.

At last, he turned into an old brick building on a narrow side street and climbed the stairs to a two-room apartment on the fourth floor. Once inside, he sat on the bed, picked up the phone, and dialed.

"Howell."

Le Saux grumbled, "How about a pleasant 'good evening'? I retract that. Considering your generally surly nature, I would accept a simple 'hello.'"

A distant snort at the far end of the line. "Where the devil are you, Carsten?"

"Marseille."

"And?"

"And the De Gaulle was at sea southwest of Marseille a few hours before General Moore reappeared at Gibraltar. I checked before I talked to the captain of the fishing boat and also discovered there were no NATO or French naval exercises scheduled at the time. Actually, none this week at all. The De Gaulle was heading farther south and west toward the Spanish coast. And get this, she was running dark."

"Dark, was she? Interesting. Good job, Carsten. Thanks."

"It cost me two hundred American."

"More likely one hundred, but I'll send the hundred in pounds."

"Generosity is its own reward, Peter."

"Would it were so, would it were so. Keep your ears open, I need to know why the De Gaulle was out there."

Chapter Twenty-five

For hours, the fast motorboat slammed through the waves. Trapped like an animal in a cage, Jon kept himself sharp by playing games with himself, seeing how perfectly and with how much detail he could reconstruct the past. The too-brief time with Sophia his work as a virus hunter at USAMRIID the long-ago stint in East Berlin undercover. And, too, there was the fatal mistake in Somalia, when he had failed to identify the virus that eventually killed Randi's fiance, a fine army officer. He still felt guilty, even though he knew that it had been a diagnostic error any doctor could have made, and many had.

The years pressed in on Jon, and as time dragged and the boat continued to batter him, he began to wonder whether this journey would ever end. He fell into an uncomfortable sleep. When the door to the storage room opened, he was instantly alert. He released the safety on his Walther. Someone entered, and he could hear what sounded like a search. The minutes passed slowly, and he felt a trickle of sweat run down his side. The frustrated crewman muttered to himself in Arabic. Jon strained to understand, finally realizing the man was looking for a certain wrench.

Fighting a rising tide of claustrophobia, Jon tried to envision the storage room, wondering whether he had inadvertently hidden the damn wrench. Inwardly he swore, and almost simultaneously he heard the crewman curse, too, aloud. But the crewman's tone was excited, not frustrated, because he had found the tool. Soon his footsteps retreated across the storage room and out the door.

As the door settled back into its frame, Jon let out a long stream of air. He wiped the back of his arm across his forehead, put the safety back on his gun, and slumped against the bulkhead with relief. Almost instantly, the boat slammed into another wave.

He checked his wristwatch again and again. In the sixth hour, the motorboat's throbbing engines suddenly ratcheted down, and the boat slowed. Soon it glided to a floating stop, and there was the metallic creak of the anchor being released. Its chain rattled out, and the hook hit the sea bottom quickly. Which meant they were in shallows. The sharp shrieks of seagulls told him they were near land.

There was quiet activity on deck. A brace of soft splashes, followed by a flurry of padded scrambling sounds over the side. There were no shouted orders. The crew was being as quiet as they could. Jon heard the creak of oars and the controlled splash of paddles, and then the noises faded. Had both the dinghy and the rubber raft been launched? He hoped so.

He waited. The boat rose and fell rhythmically, without the teeth-jarring crashes of heavy waves. As the sea washed against the hull, the vessel seemed to sigh, its wood and metal joists and panels settling in to rest. Silence permeated the craft.

He eased the hatch cover open over his head and stood up slowly, waiting for the feeling to return to his limbs. He stretched, his gaze on the line of light under the door. At last he climbed from his hole. As he advanced through the dark room toward the door, his knee struck some kind of machine part, knocking it to the floor with a clang.

He froze and listened. There was no sound on the deck above. Still, he did not move. He waited. A minute. Two. But no one came along the belowdecks passageway.

He inhaled, opened the door, and peered out in both directions. The corridor was clear. He stepped into it, closed the door, and headed forward toward the gangway. He did not realize it at the time, but he had lowered his guard, allowing himself to rely on his sense of the boat's silence and emptiness, the way he had initially found it.

That was when a powerful-looking man stepped out from one of the small sleeping cubicles, pointing a pistol at Jon. He had a fez on his head and a nasty look on his beard-stubbled face.

"Who the fuck are you? Where'd you come from?" His English had some kind of Middle Eastern accent. Egyptian?

Exasperated, frustrated, Jon lunged. He grabbed the terrorist's gun wrist with his left hand while he used his right to draw his stiletto.

Taken aback by the suddenness of the assault, the man tried to pull free. He jerked back, off balance. Jon slammed a fist toward his jaw, but the fellow recovered, dodged, and jammed his pistol into Jon's side, his finger on the trigger.

Jon twisted away just in time. The man pulled the trigger, the gunfire like a cannon blast in the confines of the boat. The bullet shot past Jon and into one of the cubicles, where it thudded into a wall. Before his attacker could aim and fire again, Jon plunged his stiletto into the man's chest.

The terrorist went down, landing hard on his knees, his black eyes blazing. With a grunt, he keeled forward onto his face.

As Jon kicked the pistol a 9mm Glock out of the man's hand, he drew his Walther from his waistband and stepped back. The man lay motionless, blood trickling out from beneath him.

Jon crouched and felt his pulse. He was dead.

When he stood again, Jon was shaking. After a long bout of forced inactivity, his nerves and muscles had been required to surge into sudden, violent action. He shook the way a racing car did when slammed from high speed to a sudden stop. He had not intended to kill the man. In fact, he did not like to kill at all, but he'd had no choice.

Once his quaking passed, he stepped over the corpse and climbed up the gangway to the deck. Afternoon sunlight came to greet him.

His eyes just above the opening, he surveyed the deck. He could see no one. Built for speed, the boat had few structures to catch the wind. The deck was flat and clear all the way to the bridge, which was unoccupied. The dinghy and rubber raft were gone.

Warily, he crawled up and moved forward to the bridge, from where he could view the rest of the boat. It was empty, too. In the bridge well, he found a pair of binoculars. To the west, the sun was a ball of lemon fire low in the sky. The air was cooling rapidly, but then, according to his watch, it was past six o'clock in Paris. Judging by the amount of time spent on the ride here and the speed at which he guessed the vessel had been traveling, he figured he was likely still in the same time zone or, at the most, one zone over.

Through the binoculars, he scanned the shore, aglow in the cooling light. There was a fine, smooth beach with what looked like plastic greenhouses. Other greenhouses had been built in rows behind it, reaching inland. Nearby, a citrus grove ran from the coast into the distance. He could see oranges ripening in the leafy branches. There was a large promontory, too, that jutted out into the sea. It appeared to be entirely enclosed by a long white wall at least ten feet high. The high height impressed him, and he studied the promontory. Dark olive trees and palms stood stark against the wall, and he could see some kind of domed building behind.

He moved the binoculars. Far to the right, modern cars sped along what looked like a good highway, close to the sea. He moved the binoculars again, this time sweeping the distance. Behind everything rose a line of hills, while taller hills loomed in the distance.

Jon lowered the binoculars, mulling over the clues. This was not France. It could be southern Spain, but he doubted it. No, this had the feel of North Africa, and from the lushness, the greenhouses, the wide sandy beaches, the palms, the hills, the highway, the newer cars, in fact the prosperous appearance of it all, and the speed and time of the journey, his judgment was that he was anchored off Algeria, probably not far from Algiers.

He raised his binoculars to study the far-off wall again. The rays of the afternoon sun had grown even longer and now bounced off the tall white barrier as if it were chrome, half-blinding him. The light danced with dust motes, too, which made what he could see of the wall hazy and indistinct. It seemed almost to undulate. With so much visual interference, he could not make out the buildings behind it. He studied the beach, but there was no dinghy or rubber raft resting there.

Pursing his lips, he lowered the binoculars and contemplated the setup. He was intrigued by that tall, very solid-looking wall that seemed to enclose the promontory.

He hurried below decks to the storage room, where he remembered seeing a plastic bucket. He stripped to his shorts again and folded his clothes, Walther, and stiletto into the bucket. Back topside, he carried his belongings down the swaying rope ladder to the darkening sea. He slid into the cool water, and, pushing the bucket in front of him, swam toward the coast, creating as little ripple as possible, since white water reflected sunlight and could attract attention.

He was tired as he closed in on landfall, wearied by the stress of events as well as by the day's rough travel. But as he stopped to tread water so he could scrutinize the white wall, fresh energy coursed through him. The wall was higher than he had gauged at least fourteen feet. Even more interesting was the sharp, rolled concertina wire that ridged its top like a crown of thorns. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to discourage trespassers.

Contemplating that, he swam quietly on toward the end of the promontory, the temperature of the seawater and air dropping as twilight spread like an inky hand. The point's terminus was overgrown with what looked like an impenetrable mass of vegetation and palm trees. He continued swimming on around but still saw no sign of buildings.

Then he smiled soberly to himself: There on the beach lay the dinghy and rubber raft, pulled close up to the thick growth. This was progress.

The strength of his stroke improved, and he continued farther on until he spotted a place where the wilderness ran so close to the sea it almost seemed to drop into it, and the white wall had ended in tribute to the density of nature's green wall. Again he stopped to tread water, this time watching the coastline for movement. After a time, he pushed his bucket ashore toward the thick vegetation and crawled up onto the sand, still warm from the day's sun. He lay there a full minute, feeling his heart pound against the beach, absorbing the comfort of the warmth.

At last, he pulled himself up and ran barefoot into the vegetation where he soon found a tiny glade, dark and shadowy, filled with the scents of rich earth and growing plants. Under a date palm, he dressed quickly, stuck his Walther into his waistband, strapped the stiletto into a sheath Velcroed to his calf, and hid the bucket.

He moved through the trees and bushes, keeping the beach in sight, until he ran into a dirt trail. He crouched to study it. There were footprints with treads characteristic of athletic shoes like the ones he wore. The most recent prints a jumble of several different sets of feet led away from where the raft and dinghy were tied.

Encouraged, he took out his Walther and followed the trail inland for another fifteen yards until it ended at a vast open area in the grip of night's growing shadows. There were olive trees and date palms and beyond them a rise of land. On it stood a large white villa crowned by a white dome inlaid with mosaic tiles. He had seen that dome from the boat.

The sprawling villa appeared completely isolated, and at first glance it seemed deserted, too. No one worked or strolled in the gardens, and no one sat in the blue, wrought-iron furniture that was arranged artistically on the long terrace. Neither could he see anyone through the open French doors. No cars or other vehicles were visible. The only movement was from gauzy curtains, billowing from the open windows. But then voices came from somewhere in the distance. They were raised in unison in a marchlike rhythm, while an occasional gunshot echoed faintly from somewhere far away. Obviously, there was more here than the ordinary visitor might expect.

As if to prove the point, a man wearing a British camouflage uniform and with an Afghan puggaree on his head appeared at the far corner of the house. He carried an AK-47 slung casually over his shoulder.

Jon felt his pulse increase. He sank down behind a bush to watch as a second guard appeared from the villa's other corner. This man was bareheaded, dressed in denims and a flannel shirt, and looked Oriental. He cradled a U.S. M60E3 light machine gun in the crook of his left arm. The pair crossed paths below the terrace steps and continued on in opposite directions around the house, patrolling.

Jon made no move. Moments later, a third guard appeared, this one from inside the house. As well armed as the others, he stood on the terrace, cradling his assault rifle, his gaze sweeping the grounds, and then he returned inside. Five minutes later, the pair circling the villa reappeared, soon followed by a fourth sentry, who emerged from the villa onto the terrace. They were using four guards.

Now that Jon was beginning to see a pattern, it was time to work his way inside the villa. He circled back through the dense green growth until he found what appeared to be a secluded door near the building's front. Here the rambling mansion was closer to the jungle-like forest than at any other point. He still saw no cars or even a driveway, which was probably on the other side of the villa. The distant voices raised in a chanting chorus sent a chill up his spine. He could make out the Arabic words now, and they were a litany of hate for Israel and America, the Great Satan.

The instant the guard walked around the rear corner and out of sight, Jon stepped from the thick cover and sprinted to the hidden corner of the house. The door was unlocked. Considering the myriad access points through open windows to what seemed like every room, it was hardly a surprise. Still, he maintained his caution, and he opened the door an inch at a time. Through the widening gap, he saw a polished tile floor, expensive Arab furniture, modern abstract paintings that were far from traditional but would not offend Islamic sensibilities, small curtained alcoves for quiet reading and meditating, and no humans.

He eased inside, the Walther out in both hands. Another room, similar to the first, was clearly visible through a traditional Moorish archway. In this land, which had been overrun and occupied by a long series of conquerors and settlers, it was the Arabs who had left the most lasting influence. They were also still a majority. Despite the tenacity of the Berber tribes and the power of French bureaucrats and residents, some Arabs were still trying to take Algeria back to full Islamic control, a goal that had proved long, difficult, and particularly bloody. It also accounted for why so many Islamic residents supported and even harbored fundamentalist killers.

The next room was as empty as the first, and he continued to move cautiously through more cool, shadowed rooms. He encountered no one. Then he heard voices ahead.

Redoubling his caution, he closed in, the words growing steadily clearer. At last, he recognized a voice Mauritania's. He had found a Crescent Shield hideout of some kind. Perhaps even a headquarters. Nervy and excited, he slid into a corner and listened. There was an echoing quality to the voices that told him they were in a large room with a high ceiling, higher than the ones he had passed through.

He moved again until the voices were obviously coming from the next archway. He flattened back against the wall next to it and peered around at the backs of some dozen men who were gathered in a great room under the building's soaring dome. They were a wildly disparate group bedouins in their long robes, Indonesians wearing the latest in Levi's and designer T-shirts, Afghans in pyjama pants with their trademark long-tailed puggarees wrapped around their heads. All carried weapons, which ranged from the most modern assault rifles to battered old AK-47s. At the front of the room, the small, deceptively mild-looking Mauritania was perched on the edge of an oak library table, dressed in long white robes. He was talking in French. The crowd of men were listening with rapt attention.

"Dr. Suleiman has arrived and is resting," he announced. "He will report to me soon, and the moment Abu Auda arrives, the countdown will begin."

The gathered terrorists erupted in excited cries of Alahu Akbar and other exclamations in a myriad of languages, most of which Jon did not understand. They waved their weapons overhead and shook them.

Mauritania continued, "They'll call us terrorists, but we're not. We're guerrillas, soldiers in the service of God, and with God's help we'll triumph." He raised the palms of his hands, silencing the tumult. "We've tested the Frenchman's device. We've misdirected attention to America. And now we'll blind and silence the Americans so they can't warn their Jewish lackeys when the Russian tactical missile is stolen and sent on its glorious way to wipe the Zionists from our sacred land!"

The roar this time was so great, the fierce cries so loud and intense, that the dome seemed to shake.

As the noise subsided, Mauritania's fair eyes darkened, and his face grew solemn. "It'll be a great explosion," he promised. "It'll destroy them all. But the Great Satan's reach is long, too, and many of our people will be killed as well. This saddens me. That we'll lose a single son of Mohammed stabs me to the heart. But it must be done to cleanse the land, to end this bastard nation of Zion. We will erase the heart of Israel. Our people who die will be martyrs and go straight into God's arms, in glory forever."

Shouts burst forth again. Where he crouched in the next room, Jon's blood was chilled. It was a nuclear attack, and it was not aimed at the United States. The target was Israel. From what Mauritania had said, the DNA computer was going to reprogram an old Soviet medium-range tactical nuclear missile and drop it on Jerusalem, "the heart of Israel," erasing millions in that country as well as many others in neighboring nations, all Arab countries, sacrificed for Mauritania's sick dreams.

Jon spun away from the wall. He had no more time. He had to find Dr. Chambord and destroy the DNA computer. They must be somewhere in this sprawling, whitewashed building. Peter, Marty, and Thérèse might be here, too. Hoping he would find all of them, he circled through more empty rooms, searching.

In the spring twilight, Matre Principal Marcel Dalio left the Toulon naval base through the security gate. He was a nondescript man in many ways, of average height and weight, and circumspect in his demeanor. But his craggy face made him a standout. Although he was a virile fifty-year-old, he looked a good twenty years older. It came from the years at sea in the constant sun, wind, and salt air. The elements had etched his face into a Grand Canyon of ravines, crevices, and mesas.

As he walked along, his great face, handsome in its dramatic character, turned to take in all the sights of the Toulon harbor with its fishing boats, private yachts, and cruise ships, which were just beginning the season. Then his gaze swept out to sea where his own ship, the mighty carrier Charles de Gaulle, rode at anchor. He was proud to be a matre principal, similar to a chief petty officer in the American navy, and even prouder to serve on the grand De Gaulle.

Soon Dalio reached his favorite bistro, on a narrow back street off the quai Stalingrad. The proprietor greeted him by name, bowed, and ceremoniously led him to his favorite secluded table at the rear.

"What is best today, Csar?" Dalio asked.

"Madame has outdone herself with the daube de boeuf, Matre Principal."

"Then bring it, by all means. And a nice Côtes du Rhône."

Dalio sat back and glanced around the provincial bistro. As the naval petty officer had expected, since the season was spring the restaurant was not yet crowded. No one showed interest in him or his uniform. Tourists tended to stare at a uniformed Frenchman in Toulon, since many came principally to see the naval base, hoping to have a good view of the warships and, if very lucky, an onboard tour.

When his food and wine arrived, Dalio ate his daube de boeuf slowly, savoring the heavy flavor of the mutton stew as only the proprietor's wife could create it. He made short work of his Côtes du Rhône, its lovely mulberry color glistening like blood in his wineglass. He finished with a tarte au citron and lingered over his demitasse coffee. At last he left for the pissoir at the rear. Like all those near the quai Stalingrad, this bistro catered to tourists most of the year. For the sensibilities of the well-paying American crowd, it had not only installed separate facilities for men and women, it also included stalls in both.

Inside the door, Dalio noted with relief that the pissoir appeared empty. He bent over to check that all the stalls were, too. Satisfied, he locked himself inside the one he had been told to use, lowered his trousers, and sat. He waited.

Moments later, another man entered the next stall and spoke softly in French. "Marcel?"

"Oui."

"Relax, old friend, you'll be revealing no state secrets."

"You know I wouldn't do that anyway, Peter."

"True," Peter Howell acknowledged. "What did you discover?"

"Apparently" Dalio paused as a man entered the men's room. As soon as the fellow washed his hands and left, Dalio continued, "The official word was that we had orders from NATO to demonstrate our drill for running dark to a committee of EU and NATO generals."

"Which NATO generals?"

"One was our Deputy Supreme Commander, General Roland la Porte."

"The others?"

"Didn't recognize them," the matre principal told him, "but by their uniforms, they were German, Spanish, English, and Italian."

Two more men pushed into the facility, laughing raucously while holding a loud, half-drunken conversation. In the stalls, Peter and Marcel Dalio remained silent while they endured the stumbling, slurring inanity.

In Peter's mind, he was gauging whether their behavior was real or an act for his and Marcel's benefit.

When the pair left, having at last worked out who would attempt to seduce the redhead on the barstool next to them, Peter sighed. "Bloody boors. Very good, Marcel. You've given me the official line. What's the unofficial?"

"Yes, I thought you might ask about that. A couple of the stewards told me the generals never went out on deck. They spent their whole time in a closed meeting below, and then they left the ship right after the meeting ended."

Peter came alert. "How'd they get off the ship?"

"Helicopters."

"They flew to the ship on their own choppers and left in them, too?"

Dalio nodded. Then he remembered Peter could not see him. So he said, "That's what the stewards thought. I was below most of the cruise so didn't see any of it."

So that's where General Moore was, Peter thought. But why? "Did any of the stewards know what the meeting was about?"

"Not that they mentioned."

Peter stroked his nose. "See if you can find out, and if you do, contact me through this phone number." Under the partition he slid a card on which he had written the phone number of an MI6 contact drop.

"All right," Dalio agreed.

"Merci beaucoup, Marcel. I owe you."

"I'll remember that," the matre principal said. "I hope I never have to collect."

Peter left first, and then Dalio, who returned to his table to enjoy a second pot of demitasse coffee. He glanced idly around the entire restaurant once more. He saw no one he knew or anyone who looked suspicious. Peter himself, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

The combat information center of the AEGIS Weapons System cruiser was a dark, cluttered cave. It had the almost-odorless, highly filtered smell of all U.S. government locations where millions of taxpayer dollars in electronic equipment were at work. Randi sat behind a communications technician, watching mechanical hands sweep across luminous radar and sonar screens, while she listened to Max's voice on the radio shout above the throb of the Seahawk helicopter's rotors.

The chopper was patrolling along the Algerian coast, and Max had radioed to let her know he had found the boat on which Jon had stowed.

"It's the same boat," he bellowed.

"You're sure?" Randi pursed her lips and considered the tiny blip on the radar screen relayed from the Seahawk.

"Definite. I spent a lot of time studying it while Jon was swimming out to it and then after he boarded."

"Any sign of people? Of Jon?"

"No one and nothing," Max's voice shouted.

"It's getting dark out there. How far away are you?"

"Over a mile, but I'm using binoculars, and I can see it clear. No raft or dinghy on the boat."

"Where could they have gone?"

"There's a big villa on a finger of land that juts out into the Mediterranean. About a half mile inland are a bunch of low buildings that could be barracks. Looks like there's a parade ground, too. The whole thing's pretty isolated. The main road turns off before it gets near the place, and then it passes far south."

"You can't see any people? Any activity?"

"Nothing."

"Okay, come on back." Randi mulled the information. At last, she turned to the young petty officer who had been assigned to help her. "I need to talk to the captain."

She found Captain Lainson having coffee in his quarters with his executive officer, Commander Schroeder. They had been ordered to detach from their carrier group to shepherd what appeared to be a minor clandestine CIA mission, and this had put neither officer in a good mood. But they sat straighter and listened with obvious interest as Randi described her plans and needs.

"I think we can insert you and stand ready easily enough, Agent Russell," Commander Schroeder assured her.

"This is cleared with Washington and NATO, I presume?" Captain Lainson questioned.

She said firmly, "Langley assures me it is."

The captain nodded, his face noncommittal. "We'll insert you, that's fine. But I'll have to go through the Pentagon for the rest."

"Do it fast. We don't know yet exactly what kind of disaster we're facing, but it won't be minor. If we don't end the threat, the loss of just a carrier battle group could look like a victory." Randi could see skepticism vie with uneasiness in the officers' eyes. She left them to their work and returned to her makeshift quarters to change.

Chapter Twenty-six

After a careful search, Jon found what looked like the bedroom wing of the sprawling villa, where there were actual doors on some of the rooms. The doors were carved, heavy wood, with solid brass fittings that looked as if they might date back to the days of the first Arab and Berber dynasties.

Jon stopped at a side corridor with magnificent mosaics that began their designs on the floor and wrapped completely up the walls and across the ceiling. Every square inch was covered with bits of perfectly placed semiprecious stones and glazed tiles, many with gold leaf. Whatever rooms were off this passage had been set off, secluded, and they must have belonged to someone important. Perhaps they still did.

He moved cautiously down the jewel-like hall. It was like being inside a long treasure box. At the end, he stopped. Here was the only door, and it was not only closed, it was locked from the outside by an antique sliding bolt that looked as sturdy as the day it had been forged. The door itself had filigreed fittings and was intricately carved, elegant, and massive. He pressed his ear to it. What he heard made his heart accelerate the clicks of a keyboard.

He slid open the bolt and turned the handle with slow, steady pressure until he felt rather than heard the door's interior latch open. He pressed the door in a few inches until he could see a room furnished comfortably with Western overstuffed chairs, simple tables, a bed, and a desk. There was also an archway that opened onto a whitewashed corridor.

But the center of gravity, the heart of the room, the point where Jon's gaze was riveted was the long, thin back of Emile Chambord, who was stooped over the desk, working at a keyboard that was connected to a strange, clumsy-looking apparatus. Jon recognized it instantly: The DNA computer.

He forgot where he was, the danger of it all. Transfixed by the science, he studied the machine: There was a glass tray, and inside lay a collection of silvery blue gel packs, which must contain the vital DNA polymers. Connected by ultrathin tubing, the gel packs were submerged in a foam-like jelly, which would prevent vibration and keep the readout stream stable. The tray appeared to be temperature controlled, which was also crucial since molecular interaction was highly temperature sensitive. There was a small digital readout for set-point adjustment.

Nearby, another machine with an open, glass face was linked to the gel packs by more of the thin tubing. Through the glass he could see a series of small pumps and glass canisters. That had to be the DNA synthesizer the feeder station for the gel packs. Small lights blinked on its control panel.

Excited, Jon drank in the rest of Chambord's miraculous creation. A "lid" sat on top of the tray, and at the interface between it and the packs of DNA was what appeared to be a thin plate of soft metal coated with a biofilm probably another type of molecular polymer. He deduced it must be a sensor device, absorbing the DNA chemical energy, changing its conformation, and emitting light as a result.

What an ingenious idea — a molecular switch that was based on light. Chambord was using the DNA molecules not only to compute; another class of molecules in the sensor detected the computation. A brilliant solution to what had been an impossible problem.

In awe, Jon forced himself to take a deep breath. He reminded himself of the reason he was here, the danger this machine presented to the world. Considering that it was still in enemy territory, Fred Klein would want him to destroy it instantly. But Chambord's prototype was not only scientifically beautiful, it was ground-breaking. It would revolutionize the future and could make life better and easier for masses of people. It would be years before anyone else came close to approximating what was here right now in this room.

As Jon argued with himself, he eased the door farther open and slid into the room. Using the handle, he held the latch bolt open and closed the door. As the bolt slid gently home, he decided he would give himself one serious chance to get the prototype out safely. If he failed, if he had no other option he would wreck it.

Still having made no sound, he looked for a lock on this side of the door, but there was none. He turned and studied the airy room, lighted by electricity even though the villa dated back long before its invention. The windows were open onto the night, and filmy curtains floated in on a light breeze. But the windows were barred.

He focused on the archway, which showed what appeared to be another hallway and the edge of another archway that opened onto yet another room. The layout suggested a complex of rooms reachable from the rest of the house only by the door behind him, locked from the outside. He nodded to himself. This would once have been the quarters of the favorite wife of a Berber noble or perhaps of the queen of a seraglio harem of a Turkish official from the old Ottoman Empire.

He started across the room to Chambord, when the scientist suddenly turned. A pistol was in his bony hand, pointed at Jon.

A cry in French came from the archway: "No, Papa! You know who this is. It's our friend, Dr. Smith. He tried to help us escape in Toledo. Put down the gun, Papa!"

The pistol held steady, still aimed across the room at Jon. Chambord frowned, his cadaverous face suspicious.

"Remember?" Thérèse continued. "He's Dr. Zellerbach's friend. He visited me in Paris. He was trying to find out who bombed the Pasteur."

The pistol relaxed a hair. "He's more than a doctor. We saw that at the farmhouse in Toledo."

Jon smiled and said in French, "I really am a medical doctor, Dr. Chambord. But I'm also here to rescue you and your daughter."

"Ah?" A puzzled wrinkle appeared between Chambord's eyes, but his great, bony face still peered suspiciously. "You could be speaking lies. First, you tell my daughter you're just a friend of Martin's, and now you say you're here to save us." The pistol jerked up again. "How could you find us? Twice! You're one of them. It's a trick!"

"No, Papa!"

As Thérèse ran between Jon and her father, Jon dove behind a large-couch covered with an Oriental rug and came up with his Walther in both hands. Thérèse stared unbelieving at Jon.

"I'm not one of them, Dr. Chambord, but I wasn't totally honest with Thérèse in Paris, and for that I apologize. I'm also a U.S. Army officer. It's Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M.D., and I'm here to help you. Just as I was trying to help you in Toledo. It's the truth, I swear. But we must move quickly. Almost everyone's in the dome room, but I don't know for how long."

"An American lieutenant colonel?" Thérèse said. "Then. "

Jon nodded. "Yes, my real mission my assignment was to find your father and his computer. To stop his kidnappers from using his work."

Thérèse turned on her father. Her slender, dirt-smudged face was insistent. "He came to help us!"

"Alone?" Chambord shook his head. "Impossible. How can you help us alone?"

Jon stood up slowly. "We'll figure out how to get out of here together. I'm asking you to trust me." He lowered his pistol. "You're safe with me."

Chambord considered him. He glanced at his daughter's determined expression. At last he let his pistol fall to his side. "You have some proof, I suppose?"

"Afraid not. Too chancy."

"That's all very well, young man, but all she can tell me is that you're a friend of Martin's, which is what you told her. That doesn't give me much confidence you can help us escape. These people are dangerous. I have Thérèse to consider."

Jon said, "I'm here, Dr. Chambord. That's got to be worth something. Plus, as you pointed out, I've found you twice. If I got in here, I can get you out. Where did you find that pistol? That may come in handy."

Chambord gave a humorless smile. "Everyone thinks I'm a helpless old man. They think that. So they're not as alert as they should be. In one of the many cars they used to transport me, someone left a gun. Naturally, I took it. They've had no reason to search me since."

Thérèse put a hand over her mouth. "What were you going to do with it, Papa?"

Chambord avoided her gaze. "Perhaps we shouldn't talk about that. I have the gun, and we may need it."

Jon said, "Help me dismantle your computer and answer some questions. Quickly."

As Chambord turned the machine off, Jon asked, "How many are in the villa? What's the access like? Is there a road out? Cars? What kind of security in addition to the guards outside?"

Analyzing information was familiar territory for Chambord. As they disengaged wires and tubes, he said, "The only access I saw was a gravel road that connected with the coast highway. The highway runs between Algiers and Tunisia, but it's more than a mile inland. The road ends at what appears to be a small training camp for new recruits. The car that brought us here is parked there with some former British military vehicles. I saw a helipad near the training center, and I believe there were two old helicopters parked on it. I can't say exactly how many men are in the house. At least a half dozen are guarding it, probably more. They're always arriving and departing. Then, of course, there are the new recruits as well as a cadre at the training facility."

As Jon listened, he controlled his frustration with Chambord, who was working slowly, methodically as they took apart the prototype. Too slowly.

Jon weighed options. Those cars parked near the helipad would work, if they could sneak out to them without being detected. Jon told them both, "Okay, here's what we're going to do"

Under the high dome of the villa's great hall, spotlights bathed the mosaics in a warm glow as Mauritania interrogated an exhausted Dr. Akbar Suleiman. They spoke in French, since the Filipino did not know Arabic. While Suleiman stood in front of him, Mauritania remained seated on the large table, his short legs dangling and swinging like those of a boy sitting on the limb of a tree. He enjoyed his small size, his deceptive softness, the stupidity of those who believed in the superficiality of physical strength.

"Then what you're saying is that Smith broke into your apartment without warning?"

Suleiman shook his head. "No, no! A friend at the Pasteur alerted me, but only a half hour earlier. I had to make my emergency calls, tell my girlfriend what to do, and there was no time to escape sooner."

"You should've been more prepared. Or at least called us, not handled it yourself. You knew the risks."

"Who would've thought they'd locate me at all?"

"How did they?"

"I don't know for sure."

Mauritania said thoughtfully, "The address in your hospital file was incorrect, as instructed?"

"Of course."

"Then someone knew where you lived and sent them to you. You're sure there was no one else? He was wholly alone?"

"I neither saw nor heard anyone else," Suleiman repeated wearily. The trip had been long, and he did not sail well.

"You're certain no one followed you once you escaped your apartment?"

Suleiman grumbled, "Your black man asked me that, and I told him the same as I tell you. My arrangements were foolproof. No one could follow."

There was a sudden commotion, and Captain Darius Bonnard entered angrily, with two armed bedouins and the towering Abu Auda himself immediately after. Mauritania saw Bonnard's rage and Abu Auda's fierce gaze, which bored across the great room and into Dr. Akbar Suleiman.

Abu Auda snarled, "His 'black man' asks you no more, Moro. A car followed me all the way to Barcelona, where I was able to lose it at last, but only with difficulty. No one had followed me until then. So where did the car come from, eh? From you, Suleiman. You must've been surveilled when you ran away from Paris, which meant you led them to me at the lodge. And you, fool, didn't even know it!"

Bonnard's anger had built even higher. His face was violent red as he told Mauritania, "We have evidence Suleiman brought them from Barcelona to Formentera to here. At the very least, he's compromised us!"

As Suleiman blanched, Mauritania asked quickly, "Here? How do you know this?"

"We don't speak idly, Khalid." Abu Auda scowled at Suleiman.

Captain Bonnard switched to French. "One of your men is dead on the motor launch, and he didn't die by stabbing himself. Suleiman brought an extra passenger, who's no longer on the boat."

"Jon Smith?"

Bonnard shrugged, but his face remained furious. "We'll know soon. Your soldiers are searching."

"I'll send more." Mauritania snapped his fingers, and all of the men poured out of the hall.

In the dark night, the lightless SH-60B Seahawk helicopter hovered low over an open area near plastic greenhouses and citrus groves a mile from the villa. The air whipped Randi's face as she stood in the open doorway and hooked the rescue cable onto her harness. She was wearing night combat camos with a black watch cap covering her blond hair. She carried equipment attached to her mesh belt and wore a backpack with more equipment. She gazed down, thinking about Jon, wondering where he was and whether he was all right. Then her mind moved to the mission itself, because in the end that was most important. More important than either hers or Jon's life. The DNA computer must be destroyed so that whatever madness the terrorists planned was stopped.

She gripped her harness and nodded her readiness. The crewman at the hoist watched the pilot, who finally nodded that he had the chopper in position, hovering. The signal given, Randi jumped into the dark void. The crewman let out the hoist as she descended. She fought the terror of falling, of the failure of equipment, blocked all her fears from her mind until, at last, she bent her knees and rolled onto the ground. Quickly she unhooked the harness. There was no need to bury it. They would know she was here soon anyway.

She bent to the small transmitter. "Saratoga, do you read me? Come in Saratoga."

With a clean, clear sound, a voice from the cruiser's combat information center responded, "We read you, Seahawk 2."

"This could take an hour, maybe more."

"Understood. Standing by!"

Randi shut off the radio and stowed it in a pocket of her camos, unslung her MP5K mini-submachine gun from her shoulder, and loped off. She avoided the main road and the beach. Instead, she worked her way through the citrus groves and past the greenhouses, their plastic coverings stirring with the wind. The moon hung low on the horizon, its milky light reflecting eerily on the plastic. In the distance, surf pounded the beach, rhythmic as a heartbeat. Above her, the stars had come out, but the sky seemed more black than usual. Nothing moved on the highway or out at sea, and there were no houses in sight. Only the ghostly-orange and lemon trees, and the shifting glitter of the greenhouses.

At last she heard two cars speeding along the highway, their motors loud assaults in the quiet night. They roared past, and abruptly their tires screeched and burned rubber as they made the sharp turn inland that Max had identified from the air. In a few minutes, the engines stopped, cut off as if a curtain of silence had fallen over them. Randi knew the only residence ahead was the villa. The speed indicated someone had felt an urgent need to get to the villa.

She accelerated into a serious run and soon reached the high white wall, where she discovered it was topped by coils of razor wire. An open space of almost ten yards had been cut between the vegetation and the wall as far as she could see, which meant she would not be helped out by overhanging branches. She unslung the backpack she had loaded on the Saratoga with equipment flown to her by the CIA and pulled out a small air pistol, a miniature titanium barbed dart, and a roll of thin nylon-covered wire. She attached the wire to a miniature ring on the dart, inserted the dart into the pistol barrel, and searched until she found a thick old olive tree some ten feet inside the wall.

She stood back and fired. The dart landed where she wanted into the tree. She returned the pistol to her backpack, put on padded leather gloves, and, grasping the wire, she swarmed hand over hand up to the top of the wall. Once there, she hooked the wire to her belt, returned the gloves to the backpack, and brought out a miniature pair of wire cutters. She clipped a three-foot opening in the razor wire, returned the cutters, and slid over the wall and dropped to the ground.

High-tech security was extremely expensive, and terrorists could rarely afford it. Fundamentalists who became terrorists maintained such an extreme secrecy that their paranoia prevented them from seeking out the necessary hardware, the sales of which were often too closely monitored for their tastes. At least, that was the theory, and she could only hope it was correct and be cautious as hell.

With that in mind, she released the wire from the dart, pulled the coil over the wall after it, and returned everything to her backpack. She melted through the vegetation toward the unseen villa.

Dr. Emile Chambord paused, his hands on the lid of the glass tray. "It's possible. Yes, I believe you're right, Colonel. We should be able to escape that way. It appears you're indeed more than a physician."

"We've got to go immediately. No telling when they'll discover I'm here." He nodded at the computer, which was only partially disassembled. "There's no more time. We'll take the gel packs and leave the rest"

There was a noise out in the corridor, the door flung open, and Abu Auda and three armed terrorists rushed in, weapons raised. Thérèse cried out, and Dr. Chambord attempted to jump in front of her to protect her with his pistol. Instead, the scientist stumbled heavily into Jon, destroying his balance.

Jon recovered, grabbed for his Walther, and spun. It was too late to destroy the DNA prototype, but he could damage it so that Chambord would need days to make it operational again. That would buy Randi and Peter time to find it, if he were not around to help.

But before Jon's gun could home in on the gel packs, Abu Auda and his men jumped him, knocked the pistol away, and wrestled him to the floor.

"Really, Doctor." Mauritania had followed his men into the room. He pulled Chambord's pistol away from him. "This is hardly your style. I don't know whether to be impressed or shocked."

Abu Auda jumped to his feet and pointed his assault rifle down at Jon's head where he lay on the floor tiles. "You've given us enough trouble."

"Stop," Mauritania ordered. "Don't kill him. Think, Abu Auda. An army doctor is one thing, but the American colonel we saw in action in Toledo who's managed to find us again is quite another. We may have need of him before this is finished. Who knows how valuable he may be to the Americans?"

Abu Auda did not move, the rifle still at Jon's head. His erect, angry posture radiated intent to kill. Mauritania said his name again. He looked at Mauritania. His eyes blinked thoughtfully, and the fire in them slowly banked.

At last, he decided, "Wasting a resource is a sin."

"Yes."

Abu Auda gestured with disgust, and his men hauled Smith to his feet. "Let me see the doctor's gun." Mauritania handed him Chambord's pistol, and he examined it. "It's one of ours. Someone will pay for this carelessness."

Mauritania's attention returned to Smith. "Destroying the computer would've been a futile gesture in any event, Colonel Smith. Dr. Chambord would simply have had to build us another."

"Never," Thérèse Chambord insisted and pulled away from Mauritania.

"She hasn't been friendly, Colonel Smith. Pity." He glanced back at her. "You underestimate your power, my dear. Your father would build us another. After all, we have you, and we have him. Your life, his own life, and all the work he will do in the future. Much too high a price to save a few people from a bad day, wouldn't you say? After all, the Americans would not be as concerned about you or me. We'd be a small ancillary cost 'collateral damage,' they call it while they took what they wanted."

"He'll never build you another!" Thérèse raged. "Why do you think he stole your pistol!"

"Ah?" Mauritania raised an eyebrow at the scientist. "A Roman act, Dr. Chambord? You'd fall onto your sword before you'd help us in our dastardly attack? How foolish, but how brave to consider such a gesture. My congratulations." He looked at Jon. "And you are equally foolish, Colonel, to think you could stop us for any length of time by putting a few bullets into the doctor's creation." The terrorist leader sighed almost sadly. "Please give us credit for some intelligence. Accidents are always possible, so naturally we have the materials at hand for the doctor to rebuild, should you decide to martyr yourself even now." He shook his head. "That's perhaps you Americans' worst sin hubris. Your so-smug assumption of your own superiority in all things, from your borrowed technology to your unexamined beliefs and assumed invulnerability. A smug assumption you often extend to include your friends, the Jews."

"This isn't religious or even cultural with you, Mauritania," Jon told him. "You're just like every other aspiring dictator. Look at you. This is profoundly personal. And disgusting."

Mauritania's pale eyes were alight, and his small body bristled with energy. There was an air about him of almost godlike invincibility, as if he alone had seen heaven and had been charged with the mission of not simply spreading God's word, but enforcing it.

"This from a heathen," Mauritania mocked. "Your greedy nation has turned the Middle East into a series of puppet monarchies. You gorge on our resources while the world struggles to find food for the next meal. That's your pattern everywhere. You're the richest nation the planet's ever known, but you manipulate and hoard and then wonder why no one thanks you, much less likes you. Because of you, one of every three people doesn't have enough to eat, and one billion are actually starving. Are we to be grateful?"

"Let's talk about all the innocents that'll be killed in your attack on Israel," Jon retorted. "The Koran says, 'You shall not kill any man whom God has forbidden you to kill, except for a just cause.' That's from your sacred writings, Mauritania. There's no justness in your cause, just cold-eyed, selfish ambition. You're fooling no one but the poor souls you've lied to so they'd follow you."

Thérèse accused, "You're hiding behind a god you've invented."

Mauritania ignored her. He told Jon, "For us, the man protects his women. They are not to be on public display for all to touch with their eyes."

But Jon was no longer listening, nor was he watching Thérèse and Mauritania. He was focused on Emile Chambord, who had said nothing since Mauritania, Abu Auda, and their men had rushed in. The scientist stood exactly where he had been when he tried to protect Thérèse. He was silent, looking at no one in particular, not even at his daughter. He seemed almost unconcerned. Perhaps he was in shock, paralyzed. Or maybe his thoughts were no longer here in this room, but somewhere else where there were no worries and the future was safe. Watching Chambord made Jon uneasy.

"We talk too much," Abu Auda announced and beckoned his men forward. "Take them out and lock them in the punishment cell. If even one should escape," he warned his followers, "I'll have all your eyes."

Mauritania stopped Abu Auda. "Leave Chambord. We have work to do, do we not, Doctor? Tomorrow will see a changed world, a new beginning for mankind." The little terrorist leader chortled with genuine pleasure.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Randi watched the two armed sentries cross at the front of the villa, followed by another who came out of the entrance. The two who crossed were walking easily, relaxed, laughing to each other. The solitary sentry stopped on the terrace outside the front door and stared appreciatively up at the moonlit night, savoring the citrus-scented breeze and the cool weather and the few clouds that were floating gently across the starry sky.

There was a laxness about them, as if they had been doing this too long with nothing happening. They were expecting nothing to happen. This told her the Crescent Shield had spotted neither her insertion nor her climb over the wall. As she had hoped, there were no motion detectors, closed-circuit cameras, or optical scanners mounted at the perimeter. The villa itself could be another matter.

She had reconnoitered the area, finding barracks and a training camp, a road out to the east-west coastal highway, and a helipad with one dark old U.S. Army Huey, and one equally old Hughes OH-6 Loach scout, guarded by a single sleepy terrorist wearing a white turban. Now she circled past the villa's front and through the vegetation, hidden by it from both the arid area of olive trees and the sea. She stopped to study the villa again, which lay like a reclining white phantom, most of its windows dark, only its mosaic dome glowing like some alien spaceship.

She was looking for a weak point. What she saw was a fourth guard standing outside the rear entrance as relaxed as his three comrades.

Until a small man wearing American denim jeans, Levi's from the look of them, and a loud checked shirt ran out the rear door. Southeast Asian, probably Malaysian, and in a great hurry. He spoke briefly and sharply to the sentry, who immediately looked around alertly, nervously, and the small man reentered the house at a run. The sentry peered out into the night, his assault rifle up and traversing as he scanned the vegetation at the rear of the villa.

Something had happened. Were they looking for Jon? Found him?

Moving faster, she continued through the vegetation to the western side of the grounds, where she discovered that the villa had a wing. It jutted out of the otherwise symmetrical building and was blocked from viewing on the east by the villa itself. The wing had no exterior doors, and the windows were barred elaborate, wrought-iron bars that appeared centuries old. The only entrance to the wing must be from inside the house, and Randi felt a sudden physical sensation, a small, involuntary shudder that combined both anticipation and disgust. She recognized what the wing had been the female quarters of the old villa, the harem. The bars and lack of doors were not only to keep intruders out, but to keep the women locked in, prisoners.

As she slipped closer, she heard voices from somewhere inside. She circled on and saw light in three windows. The voices came from behind the lighted windows, and they were angry, speaking both French and Arabic. The words were indecipherable, but one of the voices belonged to a woman. Thérèse Chambord? If it were her, she would know her from the briefing photograph she had been shown. As soon as she reached the first window, she eagerly raised up and peered in past the bars.

Mauritania, Abu Auda, and two armed terrorists were standing in the room, all pointing weapons. Even from outside, she could feel the tension. Mauritania was speaking to someone, but she could not see who it was. Ducking low, she crawled to the next window and again arose. Excited, she saw that it was Thérèse Chambord and her father. She angled a bit and, with relief, spotted Jon, too. But the joy of finding them disappeared in the terrible danger in which all three were, under the guns of Mauritania and his men.

As she watched, Abu Auda gestured violently and announced in French, "We talk too much. Take them out and lock them in the punishment cell. If even one should escape, I'll have all your eyes."

Abu Auda's men herded the three toward the door.

Mauritania said, "Leave Chambord. We have work to do, do we not, Doctor? Tomorrow will see a changed world, and a new beginning for mankind."

The terrorist's laughter sent chills along Randi's spine. But not as great a chill as a decision she knew she had to make. With Jon and Thérèse Chambord taken away, only Mauritania and Dr. Chambord, who stood near an apparatus that might or might not be the DNA computer, remained in the room. She examined the bars on the window. They were as substantial as they had appeared from the distance.

She knew her job. In seconds, she considered her options: She had a clear shot at both men but a difficult one at the apparatus. The moment she killed one man, the other would drop to the floor out of sight. Even Chambord would know to do that. A burst from her weapon might damage the apparatus, but she had heard nothing to confirm to her that it was the actual prototype, and she did not know enough science to be confident this was it.

If it really were the computer, there was the chance Chambord could repair or rebuild it quickly. Which meant the logical choice was to kill Chambord. On the other hand, Mauritania might have someone else with enough scientific training to operate the DNA computer, even if he could not build one. Then the choices would be between killing Mauritania and damaging the prototype.

Which was the best course? Would give the best outcome?

Chambord alive might eventually mean the world would have the DNA computer, or perhaps the United States alone would. Much would depend on who rescued Chambord. Langley really wanted the computer.

On the other hand, any attack by her could sign Thérèse Chambord's and Jon's death warrants. And if the apparatus really was not the molecular machine, her gunfire would call everyone down on her and end whatever chance she had to save the situation or them.

She lowered her MP5K. She had, after all, a backup plan that was dangerous but would take care of all contingencies. It would eliminate the computer, wherever it was in the villa. The problem was, it might mean the deaths of everyone.

She had to take the chance. Watching for sentries, she ran low, toward the front of the villa. In the distance, she could hear the surf pounding the sand. It seemed to echo the pounding of her heart. At the corner, she peered around at the front terrace and entry. Abu Auda and two of his men were marching Jon and Thérèse across the terrace and down to the bare ground in the direction of the distant barracks. When they were far enough ahead, she followed.

Jon surveyed the dark trees, looking for a way to break Thérèse and himself free. Abu Auda and his men had taken them through a tangerine grove to a square wooden building in a clearing some fifty yards behind the barracks. The scent of citrus seemed cloying, overpowering.

As one of his bedouins opened the heavy door, Abu Auda kicked Jon into a dark room. "You've caused us too much trouble, American. Usually I would've killed you by now. Be grateful to Khalid, for he thinks greater than I. You'll cause us no more trouble in here, and the female can think upon her sins."

The guards pushed Thérèse in after Jon and slammed the door. The key turned in the lock, and there was a clang as an additional iron bar was slid home and then a click as it was padlocked.

"Mon Dieu." Thérèse sighed.

Jon said in English, "This wasn't how I pictured our next time alone together." He gazed around the single cell. Moonlight slanted in from a barred window high in the wall, sending a rectangular pattern across the concrete floor. Its color was pale, indicating recently poured cement. There were no other windows, and the wood door was massive.

"No," she agreed. Despite her torn white suit and dirty face, there was a beauty and dignity to her that remained untouched. "I'd hoped you would come to the theater to sec me work, and then we'd have a late dinner."

"I would've liked that."

"Seeing me work, or the late dinner?"

"Both the dinner and drinks and later, the most." He smiled.

"Yes." She smiled back, and then her expression grew solemn. "It's odd how life can change so quickly, so unexpectedly."

"Isn't it?"

She cocked her head and gazed at him curiously. "You say that as if you're a man who's lost much."

"Do I?" He did not want to talk about Sophia. Not here, not now. The shadowy cell smelled dry, almost sandy, as if the Algerian heat had baked the moisture forever from the wood structure. "We have to get out of here. We can't leave the computer or your father in their hands."

"But how?"

There was nothing in the room to stand on. The single cot was fastened to the wrong wall, and there was no other furniture. He looked up at the window again, and calculated its height as no more than nine feet. "I'll boost you up so you can test the bars. Maybe one or two are loose. That'd be a happy piece of luck."

He made a stirrup of his hands and hoisted her up to his shoulders.

She strained at the bars, examined them, and announced in a discouraged voice, "They've been sunk through three horizontal boards bolted together, and then bolted to iron plates. They're not new."

Old bars in a prison built long ago, perhaps to punish Arab slaves or the prisoners of the pirates who once ruled here along with what was once a local bey of the Ottoman Empire.

"You don't feel even a creak?" he asked hopefully.

"No. They're solid."

Jon helped her down, and they turned their attention to the wood door. Its advanced age might help. But it, too, showed no weakness, and it was double locked from the outside. Even its hinges were outside. The slave owners and the pirates had apparently been worried more about a prisoner breaking out than anyone breaking in to free someone. And now, without outside help, he and Thérèse would not get out either.

Then he heard a faint, odd sound like tiny chewing. A small animal tentatively biting into wood. He listened, but could not pinpoint the source.

"Jon!"

The whisper was so low at first he thought he was hallucinating, hearing voices conjured up by his own desperate thoughts of escape.

"Jon, dammit!"

He whirled and looked up at the window. All he saw was the dark sky.

The whisper came again. "Idiot! The back wall."

Then he knew the voice. He hurried across the cell and crouched low against the back wall. "Randi?"

"Who did you expect, the marines?"

"I could hope. Why are we whispering?"

"Because Abu Auda and his men are all around. It's a trap, you're the bait, and I'm the quarry. Me or anyone else who comes to rescue you at this dinkus little jail."

"Mow did you manage to get through?" Once again he found himself admiring her abilities, her tradecraft skills.

The whisper came after a hesitation. "I had to kill two of Abu Auda's men. The night's dark, and that helped. But Abu Auda will miss them soon, and then we're cooked."

"In here, I don't have a lot of options. I'm open to suggestions."

"The padlock on the door's good, but the lock's a piece of junk. The hinges are old, but not rusted enough to do us much good. The hinges are oiled, and I can take them off. The screws holding the bar are outside. If I remove them, I think you can push the door out from the backside."

"Sounds like a possibility. Traditional, but good."

"Yeah. That's what I thought, until I had to kill the two guys. They're in the grove near the front. So I've had to come up with an alternate plan. There's a lot of wood rot back here."

Jon heard the noise in the wall again, muffled. "Are you digging into it?"

"Right. I tested with my knife, and the rot goes deep enough that I think I can cut a nice exit hole. It'll be a lot quieter and maybe quicker."

Inside the room, Jon and Thérèse listened to the noises that sounded like some small animal chewing. The noises went on, faster and faster.

Randi whispered at last, "Okay, big man, shove from your side. Shove hard."

Thérèse knelt beside him, and together they strained against the wall where they had heard Randi work. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the wood gave under their hands in a cloudburst of sawdust. Dry wood, riddled with termite and other insect tunnels, turned into dust, and the rotten boards shot out. Randi caught them and lowered them silently to the ground.

Jon and Thérèse slipped through and into the languid night air. Jon looked quickly around. The grove of tangerine trees rustled with wind, and the moon was just rising low in the sky.

Randi was crouching just inside the citrus grove, her expression tense, her MP5K held at the ready. She was gazing past the jail and across the grassy open ground to the grove on the other side. The open area was dusky and vague in the night, and the distant trees impenetrable. She motioned them to follow.

She rolled over onto her belly and elbows, her MP5K cradled in the crooks of her arms, and crawled off into the grass. Imitating Randi, Thérèse followed. Jon brought up the rear. Their progress was silent, maddeningly slow. The moon was rising higher, already beginning to shine low through the grove that surrounded the jail.

At last they reached the shadows of the forward trees. They did not pause to rest but crawled on past the dead body of one of the terrorists Randi had killed, and then the second one, until finally they reached a growth of date palms well past where Abu Auda had set his trap.

Randi sat up against a palm trunk. "We should be safe here a couple of minutes. No longer. They've got people out everywhere."

Somewhere nearby, insects made a clicking sound. Above them, stars glittered occasionally through the palm fronds.

"Nice save." Jon rose to his haunches.

"Merci beaucoup." Thérèse sat cross-legged.

As the three faced one another, Randi smiled at Thérèse. "At last we meet. I'm glad you're alive."

"I, too, as you can imagine," Thérèse said with gratitude. "Thank you for coming. But we must get my father. Who knows what terrible things they're planning for him to do!"

Jon gave Randi an innocent smile. "I don't suppose you have an extra gun for me?"

Randi looked disapproving. Jon noted her black eyes, the sculpted face, a fringe of blond hair peeking out from beneath her black watch cap.

She said, "I still don't know who you're really working for, but in the Company we come prepared." She produced a 9mm Sig Sauer of the exact model Jon had been forced to leave in the trash basket at Madrid airport, complete with silencer.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. As he checked the cartridges and saw that it was fully loaded, he told the two women what he had overheard in the dome room.

"Mauritania's planning a nuclear strike against Jerusalem?" Randi was shocked.

Jon nodded. "It sounds like a Russian medium-range tactical warhead, probably to minimize damage to the Arab countries around, but they're going to be hurt, too. Bad. The fallout will probably be worse than at Chernobyl."

"Mon Dieu," Thérèse whispered, horrified. "All those poor people!"

Randi's eyes glinted. "I was inserted here from a missile cruiser out there about seventy miles. The USS Saratoga. I've got a dedicated radio, and they're standing by for my call. That's because we've got a real plan here. It's not pretty, but it'll stop these guys from any nuclear strikes, whether it's against Jerusalem, New York City, or Brussels. We can go a couple of ways with it. If we can rescue Chambord and the computer, then they'll come in and extract all of us. We like that option most." She asked for confirmation that the apparatus she had seen in the room with Jon, Mauritania, Abu Auda, and the Chambords was the molecular prototype. When Jon said it was, she nodded. "If worse comes to worst" She hesitated and looked at Thérèse.

"It can't be any more unpleasant than what we've already been through, or what Mauritania plans, Mile. Russell."

"We can't let the DNA computer remain in their hands," Randi said gravely. "There's no wiggle room about that. No options."

Thérèse's gaze narrowed, and she frowned. "So?"

"If it comes to it, the Saratoga has a Standard Missile SM-2 aimed square on the dome of the villa. Its purpose is to eliminate the DNA computer."

"And the terrorists," Thérèse breathed. "They will die, too?"

"If they're here, yes. Whoever's there will die." There was no emotion in Randi's voice.

Jon had been watching the two women. He told Randi, "She understands."

Thérèse swallowed and nodded. "But my father. He was ready to stop them. He even stole a gun." She turned toward the trail that led back to the villa. "You can't kill him!"

"We don't want to kill him or anyone" Randi began.

Jon said, "Let's go with a combination of the options. I don't want to take the time to try to get the computer out of there. But we can rescue Chambord, and then your people can extract us."

"I like that," Thérèse said. "That's what I want, too. But if worse comes to worst" her face seemed to pale in the moonlight" you must do what you have to, to prevent a catastrophe."

Randi checked her watch. "I can give you ten minutes." She pulled a short-range walkie-talkie from her backpack. "Take this. When you've got Chambord and you're exiting the villa, call me. Then I'll notify the Saratoga that it's their turn."

"Right." He attached the walkie-talkie to his belt.

"I'm going with you," Thérèse told Jon.

"Don't be stupid. You're not trained. You'd just be"

"You may need my help with my father. Besides, you can't stop me. What will you do, shoot me to keep me here?" She looked at Randi. "Give me a gun. I know how to use one, and I'll hold up my end."

Randi cocked her head, considering. She nodded. "Take my Beretta. It's silenced. Here, take it, and go!"

Jon timed the passage of the guards, and when they turned the corner, he led Thérèse in a fast run. They landed on either side of the front door and flattened themselves back. The interior guard emerged through the doorway. A single blow from Jon's new Sig Sauer dropped him. Jon dragged the unconscious terrorist into the house as Thérèse closed the door carefully, making only a small noise. He could hear a loud discussion from the direction of the dome room. It sounded as if a war council were in progress.

He signaled Thérèse, and they sprinted across the broad tiled entry into the west wing of the old villa, not stopping until they reached the sharp turn toward the rear. They paused there, and Jon peered around the corner. He whispered in Thérèse's ear: "No guards. Come on."

They dashed down the side hallway that was completely lined in magnificent mosaics, their pistols ready to fire if discovered. They stopped again, this time at the door to the former women's quarters.

Jon was puzzled. "Still there's no sign of a guard. Why's that?" he whispered.

"Perhaps he's in the room with Papa."

"You're probably right." Jon tried the door. "It's open. You go first. Tell them you were set free and sent back to make him work even harder. The guard may believe that."

She nodded, understanding. "Here, take the gun. We don't want to make them suspicious."

Jon considered, then took the Beretta.

She straightened her shoulders and pushed the door open. She stepped in, crying out in French as she ran to him, the consummate actress: "Papa, are you all right? M. Mauritania said I should return"

Emile Chambord rotated in his desk chair and stared at Thérèse as if he were seeing a ghost. Then he saw Jon slip in behind her, the two weapons in his hands, sweeping the room in search of guards. But there were none.

Mystified, Jon looked at Chambord. "Why aren't you being guarded?"

The scientist shrugged. "Why would they need to watch me now? They had you and Thérèse. I wasn't going to destroy the prototype or escape and leave her, was I?"

Jon motioned sharply. "Let's get you out of here. Come on."

Chambord hesitated. "What about my computer? Are we leaving it?"

"Leave it, Father," Thérèse cried. "Hurry."

Jon looked at his watch. "We've got only five minutes left. There's no more time." He grabbed Chambord's arm and pulled the scientist until he started hurrying on his own. They ran down the corridors, from one to another until at last they reached the grand foyer. There were accusatory voices outside the front door. Either the unconscious guard had awakened, or he had been discovered.

"To the back!" Jon ordered.

They had gone halfway when they heard more angry voices, these from the distant dome room, and then the noise of many running feet. Jon shoved his Sig Sauer into his waistband next to where he had put Thérèse's Beretta. He pulled out the short-range walkie-talkie and pushed the Chambords to a window at the side of the villa.

"We'll go this way. Hurry!" Herding them, he flicked on the walkie-talkie. Urgently he relayed the good news to Randi in a whisper: "We've got Chambord. We're fine and will be out in a couple of minutes. Call in the strike."

Randi had moved closer to the villa and was now crouched under a canopy of leaves in the shadows of the fragrant orange grove. She looked at her watch again, dreading the advance of the digital numbers. Damn. Heartsick, she saw that the ten minutes she had given Jon were up. The moon was behind a dark cloud, and the temperature was dropping. Still, she had broken out in a sweat. There were lights in the three windows of the female annex and under the towering dome, but she saw nothing else noteworthy, heard nothing.

She looked at her watch again. Eleven minutes. She ripped up a handful of grass, roots and all, and hurled it into the night.

Then her walkie-talkie gave a low crackle, and her pulse raced with hope as Jon's voice reported in and finally whispered, "Call in the strike."

With a thrill of relief, she told him where she was hiding. "You've got five minutes. Once I call in"

"I understand." There was a hesitation. "Thanks, Randi. Good luck."

Her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "You, too, soldier."

As she cut the connection, she turned her face up to the cloudy night sky, closed her eyes, and gave a silent prayer of thanks. Then she did her job: She bent to her radio transmitter and made the death call to the Saratoga.

Jon stood at the villa's window, waiting for Thérèse to crawl through. She froze, staring at her father. Jon looked back.

Chambord had produced a pistol. He was pointing it at Jon. "Step away from him, child," Chambord said, the pistol leveled steadily at Jon's chest. "Lower your weapon, Colonel." He'd had it in his jacket pocket.

"Papa! What are you doing?"

"Shhh, child. Don't worry. I'm making things right." He took a walkie-talkie from his other pocket. "I'm serious about your weapon, Colonel Smith. Put it down, or I'll shoot you dead."

"Dr. Chambord" Jon tried, puzzled. He let his weapon drift down, but he did not release it.

Chambord said into the walkie-talkie, "West side. Get everyone out here."

Jon saw the shine in Chambord's eyes. The glow of excitement. They were the eyes of a fanatic. He remembered the detached, almost dreamy expression he had seen on the scientist's face when Mauritania had discovered them. With a flash of insight, Jon understood: "You weren't kidnapped. You're with them. That's why all the work to make you look dead. That's why there was no guard on you just now. It was all an act with Mauritania, to make Thérèse think you were a prisoner."

Dr. Chambord spoke with disdain: "I'm not with them, Colonel Smith, they're with me."

"Father?" Thérèse questioned, her face full of disbelief.

But before Chambord could respond, Abu Auda, three of his men, and Mauritania appeared on the run. Jon raised his weapon and grabbed Thérèse's from his belt.

Randi checked her watch. Four minutes. Suddenly there was noise from the building. Shouts and running feet. She held her breath as shots rang out, followed by a burst of automatic fire. Jon and Thérèse had no automatic weapons. She was afraid to think, but there was only one possibility: Jon and the Chambords had somehow been discovered. She shook her head, denying it, as two more bursts of automatic fire spit noisily in the distance.

She leaped to her feet and tore across the grounds toward the villa. Then came another awful sound: From inside, she could hear triumphant laughter. Shouts of victory, praising Allah. The infidels were dead!

She froze. Unable to think, to feel. It could not be. But all of the gunfire after the two initial early single shots had been automatic. They had killed Jon and Thérèse.

A great sorrow washed over her, and then a towering rage. She told herself sternly she had no time for either. It was all about the DNA computer. That it must not remain in the terrorists' hands. Too much was at stake. Too many other lives.

She turned on her heel and ran away from the villa, racing as if all of the hounds of hell were pursuing. Trying not to see Jon's face, the dark blue eyes, the laughter, the outrage, all of the intelligence. His handsome face with the high, flat cheekbones. How his jaw would knot when he was angry

When the missile landed, the explosion threw her forward ten feet. The percussive blast was thunderous all around her head and inside it and a windy heat at her back. It was almost as if she had been hurled away by an angry demon. As debris shot through the air and fell in a dangerous rain, she crawled under the branches of an olive tree and covered her head with her arms.

Randi sat with her back to the perimeter wall, watching red and yellow flames lick up toward the dark sky from where the white villa had stood nearly a mile away. She spoke into the radio. "Call the Pentagon. The DNA computer is destroyed, and Dr. Chambord with it. There's no more danger."

"Roger, Agent Russell. Good work."

Her voice was dull. "Also tell them Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith, M.D., U.S. Army, died in the explosion, as well as Dr. Chambord's daughter, Thérèse. Then get me out."

She switched off the transmitter and gazed up at the slowly moving clouds. The moon peeked out, a silver orb, and then it was gone. The stink of death and burning debris filled the air. She thought about Jon. He had taken a chance and known the risk. It had come out against him, but he would not complain. Then she began to cry.